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 six French spoons made at a later date which descended in the family of Jacky's daughter, Nelly Parke Custis Lewis. She likely ordered them to supplement her inherited portion of her parents' eighteenth-century wedding silver.

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Datec. 1809-1819

Maker E. P. Andrieu

Geography Made - France

Medium/TechniqueSilver

DimensionsOverall: 5 9/16 in. x 1 1/8 in. x 1/4 in. (14.13 cm x 2.86 cm x 0.64 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Lyttleton B. P. Gould, Jr., M. Chapin Krech, Dr. Shepard Krech, Alvin W. Krech, Peter Chapin, Charles Chapin, and Mrs. Charles Merrill Chapin III, in memory of Esther Maria Lewis Chapin, 1986

Object numberW-2960/F

DescriptionDessert spoon with pointed oval bowl and rounded, downturned handle with faint midrib and feather edging; engraved on obverse of handle with the Custis family crest, the head of an eagle issuing from a wreath.
Published ReferencesEleanor Parke Custis Lewis, will dated 19 August 1850, Clarke County, Virginia, AA-1, unowned manuscripts, MVLA.

MarkingsFour 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, and stamped over a partially obscured, unidentified maker's mark, featuring the letter "G" in the tip of 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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