A small group of spoons and teaspoons fully demonstrates how stylistic attributes could be integrated into the design of the least complicated forms. These examples are distinguished by their stamped Rococo cartouche terminals, the richest expression of this style in American flatware. Only Paul Revere, Jr’s shop is known to have employed this device. By the third quarter of the eighteenth century, the spoon’s profile changed as its handle was bent slightly backward.

Technical notes: The back of the bowl has a raised foliate scroll. The results of a nondestructive energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis are on file at Bayou Bend. 

Related examples: Six spoons from this set were formerly in the Bortman Collection; another was auctioned at Christie’s, New York, sale 8578, January 18, 1997, lot 78; and another is in a Houston private collection. Spoons with cartouche terminals from other sets by Paul Revere include Buhler and Hood 1970, vol. 1, p. 190, no. 245; Buhler 1972, vol. 2, p. 413, no. 360; Fales 1983, pp. 24–25, no. 17; Quimby 1995, p. 159, nos. 115a, b.

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.