CIRCA 1500

Details

A HENRY VII SILVER FLUTED SEAL-TOP SPOON
CIRCA 1500
The fig-shaped bowl with facetted tapering handle, terminating in a fluted seal finial with stepped pediment, the seal engraved with initials 'WS'
6 in. (15.1 cm.) long
1 oz. (31 gr.)

Provenance

The Benson Collection by 1952.

Literature

Commander G. E. P. How and J. P. How, English and Scottish Silver Spoons, Mediaeval to Late Stuart and Pre-Elizabethan Hallmarks on English Plate, London, 1952, vol. I, p. 218, pl. 3.
D. J. E. Constable, The Benson Collection of Early Silver Spoons, Golden Cross, 2012, pp. 92-93, no. 31.

Exhibited

On loan to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2006-2012.

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Lot Essay

SEAL-TOP SPOONS

While the earliest seal-top spoon which can be exactly dated is the Pudsey spoon of 1525 Commander and Mrs How note examples which stylistically as early as circa 1450. The term seal-top is perhaps something of a misnomer as it would suggest that the finial is intended to be used with wax to seal an envelope however as such the engraving should be reversed and How notes that no example has yet appeared which is so engraved.

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