These intriguing instruments, intended as melon knives, are indicative of the emerging rules of etiquette and accompanying proliferation of specialized dining utensils in mid-nineteenth-century America. As one social arbitrator admonished her readers: “No lady looks worse than when gnawing a bone, even of game or poultry. Few ladies do it. In fact, nothing should be sucked or gnawed in public; neither corn bitten off the cob, nor melon nibbled from the rind.” The knives are double struck in Michael Gibney’s Tuscan, one of the earliest American flatware patterns.

Technical notes: The backs have not been decorated by engine turning. 

Related examples: Other pairs from this set are at Winterthur and the Charleston Museum.

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.