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tline3open  Where'd ya get them shoulders?

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Author Topic:   Where'd ya get them shoulders?
wev
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Posts: 4121
Registered: Apr 99

iconnumber posted 07-21-2001 07:48 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for wev     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I was having a conversation with a fellow collector and the question of shoulders came up (and no, I wasn't wearing my zoot suit). I have seen their introduction given a variety of dates (with c 1820 the most common) and the city of origin as Philadelphia, Newburyport, Boston, New Haven, and all points East. There are rare examples of shouldered spoons c 1760, but these appear to be direct copies of English prototypes and did not bring the form into general use, though they continued in England straight through the 18th and 19th century. I did a quick check of my own collection and turned up a tablespoon with pointed shoulders by Liberty Browne (Baltimore & Philadelphia) who stopped working c 1815, a pair of teaspoons and a salt with square shoulders by Joseph Moulton III (Newburyport), who died in 1816, and a tablespoon with square shoulders by Ward & Bartholomew (Hartford) with their first mark used c 1804 to 1809. This would push the accepted date back half a decade at least.

Does anyone have other examples, verifiable by maker or inscription, of early shoulders? Or a candidate for the city of their re-introduction?

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Brent

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Registered: May 99

iconnumber posted 07-24-2001 08:52 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Brent     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
See my earlier thread on Chaudron's & Rasch. If we believe the history, the partnership lasted only from 1809 to 1812, which makes my shouldered fiddle quite early. I believe that the shoulders were a French invention, as were most stylistic advances in the 18th and early 19th centuries. As such, I would say it is likely that a Frenchman like Chaudron would be among the first to use the style in this country, regardless of the the actual place.

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wev
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iconnumber posted 07-24-2001 03:34 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for wev     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks, Brent, for reminding me of the Chaudron's & Rasch post - a very nice example. And speaking of the influence of French design, I ran across this interesting and early shouldered spoon in American Silver in the Yale University Art Gallery while looking into the work of John and Nathaniel Austin. Though marked [J • AUSTIN], it was part of a set actually made by Paul Revere in 1787. Their making and sale to Nathaniel Austin are listed in Revere's daybook:

To 12 Scoloped Tea Spoons, wt 6 - 13
Making at 3/4 £2 - 0 - 0
To 12 Silver Tea Spoons, wt 6 - 5
Making at 3/ £1 - 16 - 0
To 1 pr silv sugar tong
To engraving 25 cyphers at 6d £0 - 12 - 6


The cypher is for Hannah Carter of Newbury, who married William Smith in 1787. In addition to these pieces, Revere made a teapot and stand with the same cypher. These pieces have Revere's mark overstruck by that of John Austin.

The basic form of the spoon is very close to the Old English feather-edge spoons 'shouldered to the French manner' made by the English smith John Lampfert, among others, in the 1760s. I have not seen, however, the use of a fluted bowl on teaspoons of this date; is this a Revere innovation? Another French idea? Perhaps some of our readers more versed in European wares can offer an opinion.

[This message has been edited by wev (edited 07-24-2001).]

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