Bow-shaped sugar tongs were introduced during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The earliest examples, vigorous Rococo expressions, combine the scissor tongs’ shell-like grips, with arms that are complex compositions of interlacing strapwork. By the Neoclassical period the grips were transformed into either an acorn shape, such as that on these Burnett tongs, or simply an oval. The arms became solid and relied solely on engraving for their decoration.

Related examples: Hollan 1994, pp. 48–50, nos. 21–23.

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.