posted 11-23-2015 06:39 PM            

About 20 years ago I picked up a silver mug by John Townsend of Cape Town, c.1830.

I was perfectly happy with it but felt I would like to find something that was more distinctively “Cape”. I turned to the book “Cape Silver and Silversmiths” by Stephan Welz and settled on a Cape orange spoon as what I really, really wanted. 10 years later I was still looking and hoping but with no success. I then turned for help to a dealer in South Africa who advised me that orange spoons approached hen’s teeth in rarity, something I was already discovering for myself. He pointed out that konfyt (preserve) forks were also a distinctive Cape form, were more easily to be found and were made in a variety of styles. So I bought a konfyt fork.

By an unidentified JB, circa 1810. Note that it has just three tines and that the stem end turns down whereas it turns up on normal table or dessert forks. Both these variations are pretty typical, though not inevitable, features of konfyt forks. However, I then began to think it would be good to have another example in a more exuberant Cape style rather than plain old fiddle pattern. My new S African dealer friend happened to have a matching konfyt fork and spoon. They soon made their way to me.

This time by a JB who can be identified: Jan Beyleveld of Cape Town, c.1820. This fork too has three tines and a downturned stem end. The decoration is typically Cape.

For nearly 10 further years I continued to hope I would come across an orange spoon sooner or later, and then this year some orange spoons turned up among a collection of Cape silver in a Cape Town auction. With the help of my dealer friend I was able to acquire a pair.

They are by Jan Lotter, who seems to have made most of the known examples. They will have been made circa 1813-1817 and are the typical orange spoon (or lemoen lepel) shape. As well as Lotter’s maker’s mark they bear HB as the initials of a previous owner. They were actually illustrated in the Welz book that sparked my desire for an orange spoon. I lusted over their photograph some 20 years ago and now I have not any old orange spoon but those actual spoons. Sometimes there is a happy ending.