SMP Logo
SM Publications
Silver Salon Forums - The premier site for discussing Silver.
SMP | Silver Salon Forums | SSF - Guidelines | SSF - FAQ | Silver Sales

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.

How to Post Photos

Want to be a Moderator?
customtitle open  SMP Silver Salon Forums
tlineopen  British / Irish Sterling
tline3open  Soup ladle

Post New Topic  Post A Reply
profile | register | preferences | faq | search

ForumFriend SSFFriend: Email This Page to Someone! next newest topic | next oldest topic
Author Topic:   Soup ladle
agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 12-27-2008 08:57 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I was briefly tempted to post this soup ladle as a "guess the date" quiz but thought better of it.

It is by Parker and Wakelin, London 1770. Just over 14 inches long, it weighs 8 ounces so is a substantial piece. It is not in a style I would normally expect to find on British flatware of this date. At first glance I would have taken it for Victorian, made perhaps 100 years later.

I assume it is an example of a special order that looked across to France for the design inspiration, but I don't know enough about French flatware styles to be certain whether this sort of pattern was around in 1770. I am hoping one of our more knowledgeable members may be able to enlighten me.

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 12-29-2008 04:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Perhaps it would help if I clarified my question a bit. While most 18th century serving pieces match the patterns of the flatware for place settings, the rococo brought in a fashion for more decorative serving spoons and ladles. This ladle could be seen as coming towards the end of that rococo tradition. I imagine that the double swell at the top of the stem and the shoulders are influenced by the shape of some French flatware of the period. Although the ladle's decoration includes rococo elements, the effect is not particularly rococo to my eye. That is partly due to its symmetry and partly to the crowded variety of detail which made me think it Victorian at first glance, a bit like the more ornate King's pattern variants. What I don't know is whether the French already had a taste for such rather heavier decoration by 1770 or this is a peculiarly English development of the rococo.

IP: Logged

bascall

Posts: 1629
Registered: Nov 99

iconnumber posted 12-29-2008 10:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for bascall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
There's really nothing much that I can add here, but it is a beautiful ladle. Were 18th century punch bowls and ladles made to match?

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 12-30-2008 01:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks Bascall

Surviving punch ladles generally have a long, thin handle, typically whalebone (baleen) and differ only in the detail of the silver bowl. I suppose those with embossed decoration on the bowl may well have matched similarly decorated punch bowls. I think it is also at least possible that some silver handled ladles were originally used as punch ladles but are not now recognized as such having become separated from their punch bowls.

As far as soup and sauce ladles are concerned, there are surviving services where their rococo ladles were clearly made to match or suitably complement specific rococo tureens and sauce boats. While this doesn't prove that such was always the case, I think it likely to have been the norm for these items which were at the top end of the market. If I am right, the ladle I illustrated above probably echoed some of the decorative treatment of the tureen it was originally made for.

That said, surviving 18th century ladles are mostly Hanoverian, Old English or Onslow. The latter pattern would have served as a generalized rococo pattern that could sit comfortably with most styles of holloware.

IP: Logged

Clive E Taylor

Posts: 450
Registered: Jul 2000

iconnumber posted 12-30-2008 02:39 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Clive E Taylor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Interesting piece. Like Agphile my immediate reaction was - Victorian or Edwardian.
However in my own field - Georgian buckles - there are some examples which just do not resemble the uusual styles or even "feel" right but undoubtedly carry the correct marks of the period. Usually these have the marks of silversmiths registered. not in Clerkenwell or Old Street, not the area around Goldsmiths Hall, but in the West End or Cheapside - the fashionable retail areas. Normally buckles by these makers are seldom found in the UK. I suspect therefore that some makers specialised in either the export market, or foreign visitors to England. This theory is re-inforced by the contents of a wreck , the General Carleton of Whitby ,sunk in the Balic in 1785. She had among her cargo a large number of buckles, obviously intended for export, of distinctly alien patterns - but almost certainly of English manufacture. In the cotton trade it is well recognised that patterns for the home market 1800 - 1900 were totally different from those sent abroad.
I think this spoon, not being of English taste, was intended for the foreign market.

[This message has been edited by Clive E Taylor (edited 01-09-2009).]

IP: Logged

ellabee

Posts: 306
Registered: Dec 2007

iconnumber posted 12-30-2008 04:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ellabee     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It is an odd piece. If it was intended for the foreign market, I have to doubt that it was successful: it's so stiff; it has curves, but none of the movement or naturalism of rococo. But, as noted above, it would seem less out of place alongside a tureen or punchbowl that repeated some of its motifs.

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 12-30-2008 07:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks for the various comments which have prompted me to take a new approach to trying to understand the ladle. I have done a bit of browsing in my library to find examples of tureens or other tableware of around 1770 and I see that there are a few heavily decorated examples in the sort of style that this ladle might go with. They are probably better described as neo-classical rather than rococo. I was perhaps, therefore, on a wild goose chase in looking for flatware precedents when I initially posed my question. The decoration on the ladle probably does simply pick up elements from the tureen it accompanied (which in turn will have been influenced by France, I guess. Given that Parker and Wakelin catered for the top end of the market I think it will have been made for home consumption rather than export, for somebody hoping to be in the vanguard of fashion.

The use of detail from a tureen might indeed explain what I find the least successful aspect of the ladle's design: that the central stem and the terminal don't really hang together as a unified pattern because they are picking up different elements from the partner piece.

I bought the ladle because it seemed interesting and unusual even though not a completely successful design. Items like this are in a way more fun than those you know all about when you get them, simply because they do provoke some inquiry, research and thought.

IP: Logged

blakstone

Posts: 493
Registered: Jul 2004

iconnumber posted 12-31-2008 02:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for blakstone     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
To answer your question about French styles, absolutely yes, heavily decorated “King’s” shape flatware was popular in France in 1770. The shape, called “Violon” in France, was introduced there around 1725 and by 1770 was decorated with some fanciful ornament indeed. In fact, some of the specific details of your ladle – the imbrication, the floral patera centering the stem, the “reed and ribbon” edging – are strongly reminiscent of the works of Parisian silversmiths Pierre-Denis Hoart and (especially) Jean-Louis-Dieudonné Outrebon. (Your ladle pre-dates both of them, however, as they did not become masters until 1771 and 1772, respectively.) Still, the ladle seems distinctly inspired by the Louis XV/XVI transitional neoclassical fashion and not any English tradition I'm aware of. The dichotomy between the stem and terminal you mention is actually quite common on French pieces of the time, although generally executed with, shall we say, considerably more savoir faire.

IP: Logged

Clive E Taylor

Posts: 450
Registered: Jul 2000

iconnumber posted 12-31-2008 06:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Clive E Taylor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The French connection seem indicative not only of foreign influemce but possible market. If you look at the trsde cards and letterheads given in Heal quite a few are in English and French. Given the traditional English view on learning other tongues " speak slowly and shout at them - they 'll understand you if you make the effort " - considerable effort was put into enticing French custom - which implies a market.

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 12-31-2008 12:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Blakstone
Many thanks for the very helpful info. Much appreciated. It makes more sense that the ladle was directly influenced by French styles and not simply cobbling together motifs from a tureen – and I wasn’t on a wild goose chase after all with my original question.

I probably shouldn’t have mentioned rococo when I started this thread but I was puzzled as to why the ladle wasn’t in the rococo style that I would have expected still to be in vogue in 1770. As I think about it, I realise that the rococo flatware from around that date had ceased to be high fashion: it was teaspoons in fairly standardised forms for the many rather than individually designed serving pieces for the elite few, some of whom were, I now realise, beginning to buy silver in a neo-classical style.

Clive
You may well be right about the piece being made for export and I don’t suppose it is something that can be proved either way. The reason I think it could equally well have been for the home market is that those who were commissioning the neo-classical tureens etc would be likely to have wanted accompanying ladles and serving spoons in the same style – and Parker and Wakelin is the sort of firm they are likely to have dealt with. However, that is speculation and not a view I would want to defend to the death!

IP: Logged

Clive E Taylor

Posts: 450
Registered: Jul 2000

iconnumber posted 12-31-2008 02:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Clive E Taylor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
By 1770 the rococo style was well out of fashion on buckles- but due to it's asymmetric nature it was never very pronounced in buckles anyhow. But the neo classical or geometric styles on buckles did not come in until the 1780's. The spoon may well have has an English buyer, French styles being often popular in silver as in dress fashion. Clifford's book on Parker and Wakelin does not indicate a direct export trade but does mention several agents who probably did ship abroad.Unfortunately I don't think the sales day books exist prior to 1797, although the Gentlemens Ledger (Clients Accounts) fot the period 1765 -1776 are in the V& A.

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 12-31-2008 05:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks Clive. I don't have the Clifford book but I am now minded to get it.

And I have been overlooking an obvious point by referring to my photo and not refreshing my memory about the back of the ladle which has a peacock crest. Fairbairn shows this as being common to a number of families but I suppose it might be worth checking whether any of them feature as P&W customers.

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 01-05-2009 07:21 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks to Clive and Helen Clifford's book book that he reminded me of, I think I can now complete the story. Pelham is one of the families to have the peacock crest. Charles Pelham is recorded as buying a dinner service from Parker and Wakelin in 1770 so it would seem this ladle was part of that service.

[This message has been edited by agphile (edited 01-05-2009).]

IP: Logged

Clive E Taylor

Posts: 450
Registered: Jul 2000

iconnumber posted 01-05-2009 09:20 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Clive E Taylor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thats wondefull - to be able to trace the piece's original purchaser !
Normally I am dubious over these provenances - but this one looks a 99.9% certainty !

IP: Logged

ellabee

Posts: 306
Registered: Dec 2007

iconnumber posted 01-07-2009 03:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for ellabee     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
agphile, that's inspiring. I wonder if any of the other pieces in the service are floating about in the market...

Would it be possible for you to take a sideways picture of the ladle, so we could see the curve of the handle and bowl?

Does anyone know if that is one of those design features that changed in a systematic way over time, or was it more random / depending on ladle function (soup, punch, etc.)?

Blakstone, thanks very much for the information on the transition from rococo to neoclassical.

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 01-08-2009 04:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Herewith my attempt at a side view of the ladle.

As for the more general point about the shape of ladles, I have had a look at those in my collection and cannot spot a definitive pattern to how the curve and angle of the handle varies. Of course, my sample may not be large enough for this to emerge. The greatest variety seems to be among sauce, cream and condiment ladles. Not surprising given the range of containers they will have been used with.

And just four old soup ladles is certainly too small a sample, but they do reveal two distinct styles. An early Hanoverian rattail ladle (probably 1719, but the date letter is worn and that would be a remarkably early date - ladles are generally considered to be rare before 1730) has a handle with much the same curves as this 1770 example. However, an Onslow ladle of 1758 and a feather-edge one of 1767 both have handles that continue near vertically much further upwards from the bowl before curving back (as indeed does my modern 1969 ladle).

I hesitate to say whether this variation is linked to particular flatware patterns or to the size and depth of the tureen for which the ladle was intended.

IP: Logged

Marc

Posts: 414
Registered: Jun 2002

iconnumber posted 01-08-2009 10:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Marc     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Hi there Agphile,

Handles on ladles can be (and were) bent into whatever shape the owner desires to fit its vessel. This includes the large soup and punch ladles. If the owner does not want to do it, there is always a tradesman available.

The first thing that you do not want a ladle to do is slide into the bowl, or tureen. Bad form.

The second thing is you want the ladle to look good.. And when it comes to older ladles, the household help used them, not us.

And the third item, is that each owner wants to do it his own way...

I have 55+ soup and punch ladles from 7" long to 16" long, and while they are all lovely (sort of), the arc of the handle differs on all of the old, hand made ones, from the completely straight to a 90 degree angle.

Always happy to confuse..

Marc

IP: Logged

agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 01-09-2009 07:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks, Marc. I think your comments clarify rather than confuse. One of the reasons I have relatively few soup ladles and other larger pieces of flatware is size. I run out of storage space for them. At least, I tell myself it's that rather than the fact that I am too mean tp pay the higher prices they generally command!

IP: Logged

All times are ET

next newest topic | next oldest topic

Administrative Options: Close Topic | Archive/Move | Delete Topic
Post New Topic  Post A Reply
Hop to:


Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.46a


1. Public Silver Forums (open Free membership) - anyone with a valid e-mail address may register. Once you have received your Silver Salon Forum password, and then if you abide by the Silver Salon Forum Guidelines, you may start a thread or post a reply in the New Members' Forum. New Members who show a continued willingness to participate, to completely read and abide by the Guidelines will be allowed to post to the Member Public Forums.
Click here to Register for a Free password

2. Private Silver Salon Forums (invitational or $ donation membership) - The Private Silver Salon Forums require registration and special authorization to view, search, start a thread or to post a reply. Special authorization can be obtained in one of several ways: by Invitation; Annual $ Donation; or via Special Limited Membership. For more details click here (under development).

3. Administrative/Special Private Forums (special membership required) - These forums are reserved for special subjects or administrative discussion. These forums are not open to the public and require special authorization to view or post.


| Home | Order | The Guide to Evaluating Gold & Silver Objects | The Book of Silver
| Update BOS Registration | Silver Library | For Sale | Our Wants List | Silver Dealers | Speakers Bureau |
| Silversmiths | How to set a table | Shows | SMP | Silver News |
copyright © 1993 - 2022 SM Publications
All Rights Reserved.
Legal & Privacy Notices