posted 01-05-2009 02:05 PM            

The marks are BAHLSEN, lion passant and 12 (for 12 lot or .750 silver). I don't have any decent reference books on non-British silver but from what I can discover on the internet the maker's mark seems to be that of Anton Georg Eberhard Bahlsen of Hanover (Master in 1810). The lion passant features in the Hanover arms so will have been used as a town mark.

If the spoon was made between the end of French occupation in 1813 and the succession of Queen Victoria in 1837 it would have a funny sort of relevance to a British collection because during this period the Kings of England were also Kings of Hanover (Victoria, as a woman, couldn't succeed to the Hanover title).

posted 01-06-2009 02:01 AM            

Anton Georg Eberhard Bahlsen was born 27 September 1781, the son of silversmith August Heinrich Wilhelm Bahlsen (1738-1824; Master 1769), to whom he was apprenticed around 1800. Bahlsen became a master in 1810, and four years later he and his elder brother Heinrich August Bahlsen (1779-1837; Master 1809) formed Gebrüder Bahlsen. This was apparently a business distinct from their father’s, which was known as Bahlsen & Sohn. The “Sohn” was yet a third, younger brother: Heinrich Wilhelm Bahlsen (1786-1850; Master 1814).

Both these businesses - Gebrüder Bahlsen and Bahlsen & Sohn - were listed simultaneously until 1824, the year of the patriarch Bahlsen’s death. Heinrich Wilhelm, Jr. was subsequently listed alone as a gold & silverworker until his (rather early!) retirement in 1829. Oldest brother Heinrich August died in 1837, but Anton Georg Eberhard continued Gebr. Bahlsen until his own retirement in 1843. He died on 25 February 1849.

So it is not known with any certainty which Bahlsen used the “BAHLSEN” mark, though it may well have been all of them; the two businesses were probably not so distinct as all that.

As for the lion, it isn’t a city mark. The mark of the Hanover “New City” (Hannover-Neustadt) was in fact a lion, but a lion rampant and, by the 19th century, included with the lothige number “12”. More to the point, the mark of the Hanover “Old City” (Hannover-Altstadt) – a separate municipality until 1824 – was a “kleeblatt” (tierce-feuille, or threefoil), also with the lothige. The Bahlsens were all members of the “Old City” guild, and their wares marked with the latter mark.

Rather, this lion passant was the trademark of the workshop of Carl Ludwig Fargel (1790-1832; Master 1821) of nearby Hamelin (Hameln). After Fargel’s death, his workshop was continued by his widow and his senior apprentice, Ludwig Heinrich Schmidt (1812-after 1869). The Widow Fargel (née Anna Charlotte Magdalene Rapke) died in 1835, leaving the young Schmidt without a master but with a busy workshop that was a supplier to both Bahlsen and Hanover court jeweler Georg Julius Friedrich Knauer (1790-1855; Master 1816). Schmidt’s time as a journeyman was waived, and he became a master in Hamelin on 27 November 1835 at the very young age of 23. He continued the shop well into the 1860s.

So given all the overlapping dates, it’s impossible to attribute these marks to any one man. However, pieces with them are generally accepted to have been made by Fargel’s workshop in Hamelin between the mid 1820s and the late 1830s for Gebruder Bahlsen of Hanover. The style of the spoon is absolutely correct for ca. 1830 and, yes, Hamelin (of Pied Piper fame) was part of the Kingdom of Hanover at the time.

posted 01-06-2009 06:18 AM            

What can I say? I never expected such a fascinating history by way of a reply. It turns a pretty ordinary spoon into an item of much wider interest. And warns me against making over-easy assumptions (e.g. lion passant as town mark).