Description:
Set of five silver tablespoons with pointed oval bowls with V-drops and pointed-end handles with bright-cut decoration including a pendant foliate spray, which are marked "E.P" in a rectangle for Edward Putnam, and engraved with the initials "MC" in script in a medallion on the fronts of the handles. Putnam apprenticed to Jabez Baldwin (1777-1819) in Salem and was a silversmith there in 1810. He later joined with another of Baldwin's apprentices, John J. Low, to form Putnam & Low in Boston from 1822-1828, a forerunner of the firm known as Shreve, Crump and Low. The set probably originally had six spoons; 18th century silversmith shop records, such as those of Paul Revere and the Richardsons of Philadelphia, suggest that spoons were generally purchased by the half-dozen or dozen. It was only in the 19th century that large services of flatware, with matching patterns of forks and spoons for various uses, were ordered en suite. The E.H. Williams 1838 inventory lists: "5 Silver Table Spoons .... 11.25."
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https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+69.0021 |
