The Isis pattern officially entered Gorham’s cost books on March 3, 1870. It was among the most labor-intensive and expensive designs that the company had undertaken up to that time. An ice spoon was included among its utensils, despite the apparent anomaly of the form in an Egyptian-inspired pattern. With its delicate piercing and engraved ornament, it proved one of the more complex utensils executed in Isis. Egyptian designs proliferated at Gorham, which introduced three additional patterns by 1870: Egyptian Ivy, Lotus, and Egyptian.

Related examples: Ward and Ward 1979, p. 175, no. 183; Ward and Ward 1981, p. 325; Carpenter 1982, pp. 83, 85, no. 79; Venable 1994, pp. 64, 69, 33.

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.