6 Picture-front Silver Teaspoons with Acorn Bowls, c.1759

This high quality and rare set of Georgian silver teaspoons feature acorn-shaped bowls and both picture fronts and picture backs.

The presence of a picture back on the reverse side of an acorn-shaped bowl is very rare. The acorn-shape is thought to allude to Jacobite sympathisers. The picture on the back is a basket of flowers representing a bountiful harvest and to the front is Dionysus the Greek god of wine-making, gathering grapes. Furthermore the back of the terminals are engraved with original script initials.

These teaspoons are appropriately part-marked with the lion passant and maker's mark (to varying degrees of legibility). The maker's mark EC/TH is for the short-lived partnership of Ebenezer Coker & Thomas Hannam which helps to accurately date these spoons to 1759.

1759 has been described as a "Annus Mirablis" (miracle year) in the UK because of a series of military victories in the Seven Years' War, social, technological and cultural development and the beginning of Britain's superpower status. According to the "Agricultural History Review: Harvest Fluctuations 1620-1759": "The 1759 harvest was exceptionally plentiful and was celebrated with thanksgiving services and royal proclamations in Britain". The year culminated with the first public singing of the "Heart of Oak" song that references "this wonderful year" of 1759.

It seems likely therefore that the original owner of these spoons was a benefitting landowner who chose to spend his surplus funds on a very fine set of silver teaspoons to celebrate.