Engraving—incising with a graver—is a method of decorating and inscribing silver. Initials were engraved for a variety of reasons, including to communicate a sense of style, to suggest position in society, and from a more practical point of view to identify property as attested by a contemporary notice: “Stolen or taken away from Lewis Grant, in Market street, above the coffee-house, on the 22d instant, a silver Cream pot, market (marked)  L G M, maker John Buly (Bayly). Whoever takes up the thief or pot, shall have 15s. by applying to the Printer.” Initials ranged from simple block letters to graceful mirror-image ciphers consistent with a Late Baroque aesthetic.  The presence of both on this example implies that the former were intended for identification, the latter purely decorative.

Technical notes: In contrast with B.69.112, the spout is integral. 

Related examples: Antiques 100 (July 1971), p. 16; Bartlett 1984, p. 15.

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.