Maker
Louis Muh (active New Orleans, 1823–1854)active New Orleans, 1823–1854
CultureAmerican
Titles
- Fork
Datec. 1840
Made inNew Orleans, Louisiana, United States
MediumSilver
Dimensions8 3/8 in. (21.3 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.69.399.5
Not on view
Explore Further
Department
Bayou BendObject Type
The fork was not deemed a necessity for the dining room table until well into the nineteenth century. Its increasing popularity prompted authors of etiquette books to counsel readers against eating with their knife blades, encouraging them instead to use the fork “even at the peril of seeming affected than to offend the taste of another by making a mess with the fingers. . . .”
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.
Provenance[Waldhorn Company, New Orleans]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1962; given to MFAH, 1969.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Engraved: L
Mark of Louis Müh [Mackie, Bacot, and Mackie 1980, p. 126]
A series of unidentified pseudohallmarks
A series of unidentified pseudohallmarks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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