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| 17th Century Provincial Seal Top Spoon - Taunton
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Reference: S1724
Period: Charles I
Year: Circa 1640
Silversmith: Unknown
Place: West Country, probably Taunton
Price: $ 1 950.00
Weight: 47 grams
Dimensions: 18.0cm
Condition: Excellent, usual light scratches from use, and loss of gilding. Bowl good, no dents or repairs.
Description: A provincial silver Seal Top spoon, with an acanthus baluster seal top, which is probably a Taunton casting. The seal top is well made, and has remnants of gilding throughout, especially in the recessed areas. The stem is flattened hexagonal, and the bowl is the traditional fig shape, and it has a small rat-tail . The seal top has remnants of prick engraving, some pricks clearly visible, but not enough to read what was engraved. The spoon bowl itself is the traditional shape, with deep bowl, curving down from the stem. The spoon is struck 3 times by the same makers mark, once in the bowl and twice on the stem. The marks are not very clear, either they are worn or more probably struck with a worn punch. The punch has a rough shield shape with irregular edge, with a trifid top edge (Poole, Identifying British Silver, punch shapes, pg 15). The figure in the punch has a smaller roughly circular shape on top of a larger circular shape, our imagination runs to a crown over rose, piece of fruit or even a bird (with lots of poetic licence, all opinions welcome!). Two very similar seal top spoons are depicted in the book "West Country Silver Spoons by Tim Kent, pg 15, where he shows 2 seal tops by Thomas Dare I, described as "typical Taunton Castings". The closest makers mark we can find to this mark is the "Fruitlet" mark of Thomas Mathew of Barnstable (mark M90, pg 111 in Kent's West Country book). Note - This spoon comes from the same source as our Apostle spoon by Thomas Dare II of Taunton. A very similar spoon is depicted in Commander How's book "English and Scottish Silver Spoons, Vol I, pg 246", where an Exeter West Country Heavy Seal-Top, circa 1610 from the Couche Collection, is shown and described.
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17th century provincial silver seal top spoon - taunton
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different view silver seal top spoon -
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seal top, faint worn pricking
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Makers mark struck in bowl
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makers mark struck twice
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silver seal top spoon, scale
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acanthus baluster seal top, traces of gilding, Taunton
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Seal top silver spoon side view - deep curve of bowl
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Back of silver seal top spoon
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