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In this Forum we discuss the silver of the United Kingdom, as well as British Colonial silver and Old Sheffield Plate. Past British - Irish Sterling topics/threads worth a look. |
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In this Forum we discuss the silver of the United Kingdom, as well as British Colonial silver and Old Sheffield Plate. Past British - Irish Sterling topics/threads worth a look. |
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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 British / Irish Sterling
 Dorothy Sarbitt
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| Author | Topic: Dorothy Sarbitt |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 07-30-2017 09:56 PM
  
Female 18th C silversmith alert! I found this pair of tea tongs by Dorothy Sarbitt, c. 1750s, lurking in the silverplate section of that big place that sells stuff. The delightful Dr. David Shlosberg, who wrote the book on 18th Century Silver Tea Tongs, confirms (over email) that they are indeed by Sarbitt. He tells me they're only the second pair of her tongs he's encountered. They are marked with her DS mark, but without the duty lion. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 07-30-2017 09:58 PM
I like that the flowers engraved on the hinge are different--a pansy and a rose, maybe? Monogrammed on the outside of the foot: IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 07-31-2017 03:51 AM
What a delightful find! I am envious. Are you sure they wouldn't like to return to the UK where they could be reunited with my Dorothy Sarbitt teaspoon? IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 07-31-2017 10:50 AM
They could be virtually reunited with your Dorothy Sarbitt teaspoon right here, were you to share a photo! IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 07-31-2017 11:23 AM
 Oh, all right then. Not the best photo but it is all I have stored on the computer. An Onslow teaspoon, maker's mark only. I think I may also have shared it in another thread a while ago. IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 07-31-2017 11:30 AM
P.S. They may not seem to match (you cannot really have Onslow tongs) but they do have something in common. Like elements of your tongs, the spoon is cast rather than hand raised. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 07-31-2017 11:56 AM
Hello, Spoon! Was it common to cast spoons? I wonder why she did it that way. IP: Logged |
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asheland Posts: 935 |
posted 07-31-2017 12:29 PM
Great find! Those are sweet! IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 07-31-2017 01:40 PM
I agree. Even without the beautifully clear maker's mark this would be a desirable pair of tongs. On the question of cast spoons, the overwhelming majority of 18th century spoons was hand wrought. Exceptions were found among the naturalistic rococo styles where casting was the way of producing the foliage like stems and bowls, and the Onslow pattern where the terminals were cast or, for smaller pieces, the whole spoon cast in one piece. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 07-31-2017 01:59 PM
Many thanks to both of you. Agphile, if you get a chance to take a photo of the mark on your Sarbitt spoon, I would love to see it. IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 08-01-2017 09:01 AM
Polly You cannot imagine the problems you have created. First, I could not find the spoon. Panic. After a bit of a hunt it turned up in a perfectly sensible place, just not the one I thought it should be. Next, the matter of actually getting a photo. I do not have one of those clever telephones. My iPad doesn't seem to be any good for close-ups. My old digital camera is very erratic. The new one that I recently bought to replace it seems worse. Surely it can't be me? To add to the difficulty, the mark on the spoon is pretty worn though it is clearly DS. You cannot see the outline of the cartouche that is so distinct on your tongs but I have compared the lettering with the reproduction in Grimwade and it matches the Sarbitt mark, but no other, for size and spacing. Incidentally, there is also a faint shadow next to it that might be the remnant of a lion passant. Anyhow, I took countless photos with both old and new camera, deleted most of them as useless and ended up with the following three blurred images which are probably of no use to you. If I ever get to understand my new camera better I might try again, but for the moment I need a rest from electronic gadgetry. I don't know whether you have looked Dorothy Sarbitt up. It would seem she was the widow of Hugh Mills who had entered his first mark in 1739 and probably died in 1746 when Dorothy Mills and Thomas Sarbitt are recorded as a partnership. A DM over TS mark has been noted on salt cellars of 1748 and a cream jug of 1749. Dorothy Mills entered a DM mark on her own in 1752 and then a DS mark as Dorothy Sarbitt in 1753 from which it seems that she married Thomas but was soon widowed again. I don't know how long she continued to run a workshop. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 08-01-2017 11:19 AM
Aw, I'm so sorry to have triggered your panic! I'm sure you've tried all this, but I've had success taking photos from a distance and cropping close. Also, if your camera has a flower icon, that's the macro, which should make it easier to focus close up. Somewhere in my wanderings on the internet I read something about a Dorothy Mills, widow, marrying a John Sarbitt, bachelor, not Thomas, so perhaps she married Tom's brother or son? (This would be more convincing if I remembered where I'd read it.) IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 08-01-2017 12:53 PM
You're right, Polly. I was relying on my reference library. Grimwade assumed that Dorothy married Thomas. The researchers who update Grimwade on the 925-1000 site have discovered that she actually married John, a watchmaker. The likely sequence of events therefore seems to be that after the death of Hugh Mills she runs the workshop in partnership with Thomas Sarbitt who retires or dies in 1752 whereupon she enters her DM mark. In 1753 she marries John Sarbitt and enters her DS mark. Unless John died within a month of the wedding this was not as his widow. I don't know whether the implication is that she kept John's hands off her business or simply that John was not free of the Goldsmiths so could not have a mark in his name. Poole (another reference book) has 1754 as his latest sighting of the DS mark which might suggest that she was simply keeping a mark registered while she disposed of her business. That would neatly date our pieces to 1753/54 but would be a shame if we would like to think of her as an early Hester Bateman. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 08-01-2017 09:46 PM
I think this has the ingredients of a good murder mystery. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 11-02-2017 03:45 PM
I now have a collection of Georgian tongs by silversmiths named Dorothy. Two is a collection, right? Here's a photo of my collection. In addition to the Dorothy Sarbitt tongs, I now have a pair of tongs by Dorothy Langlands of Newcastle, 1804-1814. Here are the marks of the two pairs together: The other marks on the Langlands tongs: Does anyone know of any other Dorothys I should be looking for? IP: Logged |
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agphile Posts: 798 |
posted 11-02-2017 05:59 PM
Two is certainly a collection, but this one might be difficult to grow. I could only spot two other Dorothys (or should the plural be Dorothies?) listed in "Women Silversmiths 1685-1845" by Philippa Glanville and Jennifer Faulds Goldsborough: Dorothy Manjoy of Dublin, active 1715-31, and Dorothy Grant of London from c.1679-1712. IP: Logged |
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Polly Posts: 1971 |
posted 11-02-2017 07:01 PM
Thank you, agphile--something to aspire to. It would probably be easier if I were collecting Ann(e)s or Marys. IP: Logged |
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