posted 04-04-2005 04:47 AM            

Can anybody help me identify the maker of this serving spoon? One hallmark is from the city of Ath/Aat (Tardy) in Belgium. There is one book available about ath (l'Orfèvrerie en Hainaut, Mons Ath Tournai) but I sadly don't have a copy of this book.

Thanks in advance for your help!

posted 04-04-2005 11:49 AM            

Your second question is I collect antiques and this includes this object. I do not own specific literature about Belgium Silver.

I thought this forum would help me figure out some items I own.

posted 04-04-2005 12:41 PM            

The first coat-of-arms mark is shown in a negative drawing with no explanation except it is next to a cross on a platform which is similar to your second mark which is under heading “Town marks”. In “Silver in Belgium 1500 – 1800”, a book in 3 languages which also is not of much use if you are interested in marks, a very similar mark is shown with “Ath 1777” I think we can presume it is either the coat-of-arms of Ath or of the guild.

The second mark is not shown in the first book although similar ones are as I mention above. A very similar mark is identified as “Ath 1777” in the second book mentioned.

I guess we can presume the last mark is a date letter for 1784, I hope you can post a picture of the spoon to see if that looks correct.

If you are not thoroughly confused by now, I will continue. Neither book shows a mark similar to your third mark. Don’t feel bad they don’t attribute many marks to specific makers. The Hainaut book does however give a chronological list of silversmiths in Ath. There is a slight chance, if you can tell me what is pictured in the mark, and if the date of 1784 seems right, we might be able to attribute it to a specific maker. Sorry, but if this is a Rorschach Test, I failed because all I can see in your third mark is a bare backed mermaid plucking a chicken.

posted 04-04-2005 02:15 PM            

quote:

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Sorry, but if this is a Rorschach Test, I failed because all I can see in your third mark is a bare backed mermaid plucking a chicken.

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Mon Dieu, Maurice, you are in rare form this morning! I haven't laughed so hard in months! Merci!

posted 04-04-2005 02:22 PM            

On the back is engraved L.I.L

posted 04-04-2005 02:59 PM            

Swarter I know why you see that in the mark, I have never doubted you are every bit as demented as I am.

posted 04-04-2005 03:02 PM            

Thanks for your help!!

I totally forgot to say or think that its a Ladle, somehow I said serving spoon!

posted 04-04-2005 06:26 PM            

I can also see a cartoon-like clown/animal face in that figure - large mouth, wide nose, big eyes, floppy ears, and a shock of hair. I wonder what it really is? I trimmed and rotated it on the computer, and as it turned and the lighting direction reversed, the figure went negative - an effect I have seen described in the lighting chapters of photography books (also important in interpretation of aerial photogaphy)- weird. Rotated 45 degrees right, it looks like a deep sea angler fish, or a batfish, but I am not squirrly enough to see a squirrel in it from any angle!

posted 04-04-2005 09:55 PM            

Kind of like a cloud, the mark is what you see in it. I certainly can't see a fish of any kind. I privately conceded to Swarter that I saw Red Skelton's seagull imitation in it, which of course shows how truly demented I am. My wife saw a griffin, a rooster, and finally agreed to my plucking mermaid, but I think we can discount her opinion as she has to be crazy (she married me after all).

Agleopar (and I guess my wife) could actually be right, as chickens, and lions do come up fairly often in Belgium marks.

Does anyone see a really sexually perverted subject in it? If so send me a private email as I am always open to new ideas.

posted 04-05-2005 02:59 PM            

The mark is definitely 1784, Ath, Hainaut province, Belguim. The first coat of arms is that of the province of Hainaut (Henegouwen in Dutch). It represents a quartering of the arms of Vlaanderen and Holland and dates from the early 14th century when William I of Hainaut (aka William II of Vlaanderen and Holland) received the province from his father. The cross on a pedestal - for reasons I do not know - is the emblem (though merely a supporter on the arms) of the city of Ath.

"84" here is definitely the date, not the purity. The Eastern Baltic countries - Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and, of course, Russia - did use the zolotnik method of fineness, but the western & northern Baltic/Scandinavian countries - Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland - did not. It's a moot point, anyway: Ath is in southern Belgium, near the French border, and its latitude lies entirely south of Great Britain - hardly Baltic. Ath definitely used a two digit number for the year, sometimes crowned, sometimes not.

Belgian hallmarking in the late 18th century followed Dutch tradition, not French. Though the country had been occasionally coveted by the French, it had, since the war of Austrian succession, been a part of the Austrian Netherlands. (It wouldn't become French again for another decade when it was overrun by angry sans-culottes.)

As such, we have typically Dutch style marks: the guild/city mark (the cross), the purity mark (the Hainaut arms), the assayer's date mark ("84", though northern Dutch cities used a date-letter system like the English), and a maker's mark - which, if pressed, I'd identify as a mermaid at her toilette (which I suppose isn't much of an improvement on chicken-plucking.) Pictographic maker's marks were not uncommon in Ath at the time; J. J. Philippron's mark, for instance, was a lion's head with its tongue sticking out.

And, as has been mentioned, the ladle itself is very much in the late 18th century Belgian (which is to say, Dutch) style. I'd encourage labarbedor to attack the Hainaut book again and double-check for the maker's mark. It may not lie within, but doubtless the maker does; a pictographic mark would undoubtedly be hard to attribute unless it were canting (i.e. punning.)

posted 04-05-2005 03:38 PM            

Thank you for your interesting post. Mermaid in dutch = Zeermeermin and Chicken = Kip

I am pretty much sure i am not going to find the maker of this Ladle! its to complicated.

Maybe I should purchase the book.