This type of spoon, notable for its distinctive cast handle, was first produced in Holland during the late sixteenth century. There, as in the American colonies, it was reserved for holidays or family occasions, when it was set out with the brandywine bowl (B.63.3). Inscriptions on related spoons indicate that at times they were intended as presentations at a funeral, a custom that persisted in New York State into the early nineteenth century.

Related examples: Jacob Boelen, I, spoons with foliate bud terminals include Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. 2, pp. 11–12, no. 555; Quimby 1995, p. 201, no. 158. Cast-handle spoons terminating in caryatids, owls, or animal hooves by Cornelius van der Burch and Gerrit Onckelbag are recorded, and examples are attributed to Jurian Blanck, Jr., Hendrick Boelen, I, Jacobus Van der Speiegel, and Ahasuerus Hendricks.

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.