Suikerstrooilepel met ovale, opengewerkte bak met parelrand en houten steel 1805

This is a silver sugar-sprinkling spoon with an oval, open-worked bowl featuring a beaded edge and a wooden handle, made by Diederik Willem Rethmeyer. During Rethmeyer's lifetime, sugar was a luxury item, harvested by enslaved people on plantations, so this delicate spoon embodies a complex intersection of status, taste, and exploitation. The spoon’s intricate design and precious materials speak to the refinement of elite social rituals, while also obscuring the brutal realities of its origins. The act of sprinkling sugar, a seemingly innocent gesture, becomes laden with the weight of history and the uncomfortable truths of colonialism. Consider the spoon's quiet presence as a symbol of both personal pleasure and collective culpability.