The fork is believed to have originated in Italy and was not recorded in England prior to the sixteenth century. In the American colonies, only a few examples dating from the colonial period are known, as steel-tined English forks predominated until the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This design was produced by Anthony Rasch’s Philadelphia and New Orleans shops, although the mark on this dessert fork clearly identifies it as a product of the latter.

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.