Dessert spoon

Status

Not on view

Label Text

Martha Washington's son, John "Jacky" Parke Custis, and his new wife, Eleanor Calvert, assembled an impressive array of imported English silver soon after they married in 1774. It included twenty-four dessert spoons featuring the Custis crest. This is one of sixteen French spoons made at a later date which descended in the family of Jacky's daughter, Eliza Parke Custis Law. She likely ordered them to supplement her inherited portion of her parents' eighteenth-century wedding silver.

See also dessert spoons, H-4802-H4810, W-445/A-D, F, and W-1468.

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Datec. 1809-1819

Maker E. P. Andrieu

Geography Made - France

Medium/TechniqueSilver

DimensionsOverall: 5 1/2 in. x 1 1/8 in. x 5/8 in. (13.97 cm x 2.86 cm x 1.59 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. George R. Goldsborough, Vice Regent for Maryland, 1908

Object numberH-445/E

DescriptionDessert spoon with pointed oval bowl and rounded, downturned handle with faint midrib and plain edges; engraved on obverse of handle with the Custis family crest, the head of an eagle issuing from a wreath.

MarkingsThree hallmarks or stamps on reverse of handle: maker's mark features the letters "E," "P" and "A" surmounted by a pair of crossed spoons with a dot above and below, all in a diamond; official Parisian assay mark for standard silver, 950/1000, featuring the profile of a cock, running right, with the number "1" at lower right, all in a bordered, canted-corner rectangle; Parisian medium excise mark featuring the profile of a helmeted Greek soldier, facing right, in a circle.

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