Spoon 1700 - 1725

Curator: First impressions—it gleams. Almost lunar. Editor: And utilitarian, don't you think? Here we have a baroque silver spoon crafted by Benjamin Wynkoop, dating back to the early 18th century. It resides now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Curator: Utilitarian objects humming with stories. Imagine what hands held this, what lips it fed? I see entire histories reflected in its polished surface, ghosts of soups and maybe tears... oh dear. Editor: Right, and those "ghosts," as you say, were likely wealthy patrons. Silver was a commodity. To have a spoon like this signified not only utility but conspicuous consumption. It speaks to labor as well, the silversmithing and craftsmanship that went into its creation, the access to precious materials and production. Curator: So it is the silent language of wealth made manifest? But still, there’s an artistry to even its simplicity. That slight curve to the handle, the weight, and balance… Doesn’t it strike you as being perfectly sculpted? Editor: I notice the way its design reinforces social stratification, it also strikes me how spoons from the past were a luxury. And luxury always implicates privilege and power. What do you imagine was eaten with it? Curator: Syllabub? Pottage? Something frothy and delicious. Perhaps that's too fanciful, though, in my vision it would have to be a bit of sunshine and pure decadence in a time that could likely use it. We so often overlook the humble spoon but in looking deeply at it, we begin to grasp the lives and hands connected by something so mundane. Editor: The point is it wasn't mundane at all. It reflects the period in which it was crafted. A baroque expression of social and economic factors, now here, polished for our collective contemplation. Curator: So then, is it merely a spoon? Editor: No, it is the cultural context of it's origins cast in gleaming silver.