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Fork with Porcelain Handle Fork
This is a fork. It was manufactured by Saint-Cloud Porcelain Manufactory. It is dated ca. 1740 and we acquired it in 1985. Its medium is soft paste porcelain, vitreous enamel, steel, silver. It is a part of the Product Design and Decorative Arts department.
text from "The Design of Table Tools..." in Feeding Desire exhibition catalogue:
"To escape the perfunctory, ritualistic decorum associated with the Sun King, many aristocrats, following his demise, moved from the confinement of the cold apartments at Versailles to the freedom of smaller, more independant quarters in Paris, some with a room made solely for dining. Compared to the gradeur of Versailles, the intimacy of small dining rooms encouraged richly appointed table settings, including flatware, and led to elegant entertaining by mid-eighteenth century (fig. 7) At this time, the accoutrements of the table assumed importance over a display of silver on a sideboard, a fashion more popular at both earlier and later dates. Fashionable table settings included spoons designed as sets for the table rather than as personal objects, hence the term "table" spoon."
This object was
donated by
Eleanor L. Metzenberg.
It is credited The Robert L. Metzenberg Collection, gift of Eleanor L. Metzenberg.
Its dimensions are
L x W x D: 20.8 × 2 × 1.6 cm (8 3/16 × 13/16 × 5/8 in.)
It has the following markings
Unmarked
Cite this object as
Fork with Porcelain Handle Fork; Manufactured by Saint-Cloud Porcelain Manufactory (France); France; soft paste porcelain, vitreous enamel, steel, silver; L x W x D: 20.8 × 2 × 1.6 cm (8 3/16 × 13/16 × 5/8 in.); The Robert L. Metzenberg Collection, gift of Eleanor L. Metzenberg; 1985-103-226
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005.
