These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.
Download this imageCreative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.
Baluster Seal Top spoon
Silversmith: Unidentified
Silver-gilt; the spoon has a fig-shaped bowl on a tapering, slightly flattened, hexagonal stem. The seal top finial has a flattened gadrooned knop above a gadrooned urn-shaped baluster knop. The back of the bowl is prick engraved 'CR'. The gilding is old but not contemporary with the manufacture of the spoon.
Marks: On the bowl is a leopard's head. On the stem is (1) a lion passant (2) date letter P for 1572-73 (3) maker's mark of a crescent enclosing a mullet.
T. H. Riches Bequest, 1935
Length: 17.8 cm
Length: 7 in
Weight: 65 g
Weight: 2:2 oz:dwt
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1935) by Riches, Thomas Henry
16th Century, third quarter#
Elizabethan
1572
CE
-
1573
CE
The maker's mark of a crescent enclosing a mullet has not been identified, but as a large number of spoons, made between about 1550 and 1630, bear this mark it must have been used by a succession of specialist spoonmakers.
Surface
composed of
gold
Finial
Spoon
Inscription present: a crescent enclosing a mullet
Inscription present: lion passant
Inscription present: small gothic
Inscription present: leopard's head crowned
Accession number: M.5-1950
Primary reference Number: 139845
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
Mirador deep zoom
IIIF Manifest
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Baluster Seal Top spoon" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/139845 Accessed: 2024-11-21 23:05:40
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/139845
|title=Baluster Seal Top spoon
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-21 23:05:40|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-139845
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa30/M_5_1950_1_201406_jas244_mas.jpg"
alt="Baluster Seal Top spoon"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Baluster Seal Top spoon</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...
