Tablespoon, Wroclaw, early 18th century.

Silver tablespoon with a richly decorated flat handle, ending with a characteristic profiled button in the Baroque style. On the top side, finely engraved floral ornaments – typical of Central European Baroque. On the underside of the scoop part, two punches: the city mark of Wroclaw (St. John’s head in a circle) and the probationer’s mark (the letter “H” in a heart). A proboscis in the place of joining the handle with the scoop – an element typical of Lower Silesian workshops of the period.

Breslau was one of the most important goldsmithing centers in Central Europe in the 17th-18th centuries. The Breslau workshops were famous for their high quality applied and sacred silver, and their products were exported and coveted throughout the region. Today, the city’s punches and test marks are key sources for dating and identifying these works.

The proboscis, visible where the shank joins the picker, was a distinctive mark of Lower Silesian proboscises – rarely seen outside the Silesian region. Today, it is a unique identifying feature for regional silver.