Utensils designed for serving asparagus were first produced in England during the 1760s; however, the date for the introduction of individual tongs is uncertain. In all probability their earliest production corresponds with the mid-nineteenth-century social dictate to resist handling food with the fingers. The Bayou Bend pair are among the earliest extant American asparagus tongs. Their brilliantly executed decoration, inspired by Neoclassical bright-cut engraving, produces an effect consistent with the colonial revival aesthetic.

Related examples: This pair originally comes from a set of six; another pair is illustrated in Venable 1994, p. 139, and the third pair is privately owned.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.