Table spoon, silver, Poland, ca. 1650
3400,00 zł
Silver tablespoon made in the Republic circa 1650.; baroque with egg-shaped scoop, on the back, at the joining of the scoop and the handle, engraved cartouche of the coat of arms with a hollow shield; the handle in the form of a flat faceted bar, decorated with engraving, originally ending in a profiled dome.
Very similar spoons are held in the collection of the National Museum in Kraków (including MNK XV-307 https://zbiory.mnk.pl/pl/katalog/523365 ). The similarities are not only in size, but also in form and decoration. It is very likely that they were made in the same workshop or workshop circle.
1 in stock
The handle is in the shape of a flat faceted bar, engraved, and on the underside of the scoop an engraved cartouche of the coat of arms with a blank shield. The lack of a coat of arms probably means that the spoon never reached a noble recipient, or that its owner was a non-heraldic person, such as a burgher.
Historical context
The spoon comes from a hoard of silver objects once discovered in the Eastern Borderlands in the town of Zwinogródka, Korsun starosty (now Zvenyhorodka, Cherkasy Oblast in Ukraine). Theoretically, the concealment of the hoard can be correlated with events from around the mid-17th century. In 1646, the deputy starosta of Biała Cerkiew, Zygmunt Czerny, raided the nearby Kalnebłoto and the sloboda of Neberybis, belonging to Zwinogródka, with 200 armed men. Shortly thereafter, Zwinogródka was seized by the notorious troublemaker Samuel Łaszcz, sentenced to banishment, who at the head of impoverished nobility plundered the surrounding areas. In 1648, Zwinogródka was occupied by the rebellious forces of Khmelnytsky's uprising, which marked the beginning of the town's greatest decline, Tatar raids, and the flight of the population to the Dnieper region.
Collector's value
Original, Polish spoons from the 17th century very rarely appear on the collector's market. The vast majority of such silverware is in museum collections, including those at Wawel Castle and the National Museum in Cracow. A rarity is the absence of the coat of arms in the decorative cartouche on the bottom of the scoop, prepared for it. This is an indication that it was not the spoons that were made to order, but the final piece of decoration, which was the coat of arms placed in the shield prepared in advance.
Aesthetic qualities
The spoon is sparing in form and ornamentation, which has to do with a certain workshop standard and aesthetic canon that prevailed not only in Poland, but also in Silesia until the 18th century.
Application
The table spoon was part of a personalized service belonging to a wealthy individual, an object with both functional and representational purpose, constituting an element of prestige. Today it can serve as a museum exhibit, element of scenography, or collector's item—for the bold, also as an everyday object.
Spoon a status symbol
In the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the nobility often carried their own spoons on their belts or in special cases, especially during regional assemblies, elections, or travels. Owning one's own cutlery was not only a hygienic requirement but also a mark of status. Baroque silver spoons with cartouches are today a valuable source of knowledge about table culture and the identity of Polish nobility in the Baroque era. Such cutlery was often made in small local goldsmith workshops. The absence of hallmarks was typical of provincial production, particularly in the eastern territories of the Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
| Weight | 0,040 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 20 × 5,5 cm |
| Type |
Silver tablespoon |
| Materiał |
Chiseled silver |
| Kolorystyka |
Silver |
| Technika |
Chiseling ,Riting |
| Czas powstania |
circa 1650. |
| Era |
Baroque |
| Kraj pochodzenia |
Poland |
| State of preservation |
Age-related state of preservation, lack of profiled dome crowning the stem |
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