www.925-1000.com

I didn't know where to post this, obviously it is a spoon.
But what kind of spoon. and where was it made, and when, and of course why, meaning what is it saying.
We have fairly much decided the Pope is Leo X, who reigned over the Catholic church during the reformation.
Why are two rather sexily clad angels holding a crown over his papal tiara? Why the naked lady, that looks a little like Venus
Who is consoling a kneeling person, on his throne. The only other thing i think I recognize are the windows which is think are the addition to the Vatican under Leo X called Raphael's logia.
So is this pro or anti pope?
Before you condemn this as a modern souvenir spoon, realize I can find no other example, it is not marked.
I thought the shape of the bowl was slightly Germanic, but before you agree look at similar spoons in Paul Storr's Hunt pattern.
Good luck on this one, I am, for the moment, giving up.

Please provide the spoon’s dimensions.
Is there any provenance for the item?
If the bust was intended to represent Leo X various website images of him suggest the spoon maker has done him no favours.
If it is him it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine why a Protestant patron might have commissioned a silversmith to produce an item ridiculing Leo X. Pope Leo X was, after all, responsible in 1521 for excommunicating Martin Luther.
Do the two female figures supporting the crown have wings which we can't see? Possibly they were intended as a snipe at the Pope. They don't look like angels to me!

Mike

Sorry ladies! I think I've just found your wings!

Mike

Hi,
It is 15.8 cm long, the bowl is about 4 cm at the widest. Sorry no provenance. On the back of the spoon on either side of the crown are what look like the backs of the figures, and seem to have wings.
I have had Storr's hunt pattern, but not recently, and not this type of spoon. I would be very interested in comparing the bowls, etc. I think it is sterling, but it could be .950 fine, and I tried to have that determined by a machine at a friend's place, but I believe it is too large, and those only give a surface quality. It has heavy patina in the bowl, so I would say it is earlier than late 19th c. however the problem is that some people in America have historically used "spooners" to put spoons in on a table, and this would explain the patina. The bowl has a wide lip all the way around, and still retains about 90% of the original gilding.
Of course it is odd to find a spoon of this quality without any marks, but it is possible the maker didn't want to take the blame for a politically incorrect statement.

Maurice

Thanks for the dimensions Maurice. The spoon is bigger than it looked in the image.
I can't add much except perhaps an historic note that there is a connection between Pope Leo X and the famous painting of 1486 by Botticelli " The Birth of Venus". It was commissioned by the Medici and this Pope was one of the family as the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. That said the pose in the painting is much more demure than the one here but I suppose if the spoon is a copy the original Renaissence silversmith may not have had a clue what the painting looked like any more than he seemingly had of the Pope's image.
Mike

I don't think the spoon is a copy, and not of a spoon that early. I think it is a prototype of a pattern that was decided against. I had the silver quality tested, I think they call it xray florescence, anyway it is a supposedly very accurate method of testing the surface quality of the silver.
it tested .925 fine. So I think that rules out Germany as the country of origin. I doubt the spoon could be American, which points a finger at England. I think it was maybe a prototype, the was rejected. The only other explanation I can come up with is that it was made in a very limited production, but not in England, and the silversmith left his name off because the subject matter was not politically correct.

Eureka
Well I didn't find it, a friend did. An old internet image of a citrus spoon in the same pattern identifies it as Gorham, possibly with the 1893 date mark. I can only presume mine was a prototype as it was never marked by Gorham, something I have never seen before. Of course we are still guessing at the meaning of the iconography, but I guess this is a starting point.
Maurice

I can also presume the odd heavier patina in the bowl, was caused by putting it in a spooner in the center of a table, something common at one time in parts of America.