Elizabeth I Silver Seal Top Spoon, 1589

This is a fine example of an Elizabeth I silver seal top spoon made by William Cawdell who was the premier spoonmaker of the late 16th century.

The spoon features a cast, cushion-shaped seal terminal to the end of a tapering hexagonal stem with hexagonal plate to the top. The plate is engraved with dot-pricked ownership initials. The fig-shaped bowl remains in excellent condition and is stamped with the leopard's head for London. The three remaining marks are found to the reverse of the stem and are in good legible order being a "C" enclosing a "W" for the maker William Cawdell, a lion passant and date letter "M" for 1589. This 430+ year old spoon is in fine condition. 

William Cawdell was the most important spoonmaker of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He was apprenticed to Patrick Brue in 1576 and was an important link in the master/apprenticeship dynasty of London spoonmakers. His output was prolific and the quality of his spoons were the best of the late Tudor period. His distinctive style of maker's mark was later copied by his apprentices (James Cluatt, Martin Cottrell and John Jermyn) that succeeded him.

In 1589, England would have still been celebrating their victory against the Spanish Armada the previous year and indeed sent a largely unsuccessful counter-armada to Spain.