Object Number: #342
Augsburg c. 1670
Abraham Mair
City hallmark: a “pyr” for Augsburg, period 1669/73 (Seling 2007, Nr. 0720)
Maker’s mark: a male’s head directed towards left in an oval shield for Abraham Mair (Seling 2007, Nr. 1548).
Length: 18,1 cm (7, 08 in.); weight: 64 gr.
Pictures
Detailed Information
Silver-Gilt Spoon from Augsburg
This spoon presents a wonderful example of the baroque eating culture of the end of seventeenth century from Augsburg. The stem is connected with the bowl on its later back with an elongated V-form and like a rat-tail part. The bowl is wide and oval and the stem is long, narrow and decorated in its upper part in square part-twisted, frosted fields.
Marks and the control of the finesse of silver (“Tremulierstich”) are punched on the back-ide of the bowl.
In the seventeenth century it was not yet common for hosts to provide cutlery when having guests to dinner. Guests had their own personal eating tools, usually a knife and spoon (fork was increasingly included towards the end of the century).
Maker
Abraham Mair, Protestant, was son of the goldsmith Lienhard Mair. He applied for the master maker’s right around 1648 and he got married to Anna Maria Blank a year later. He died in 1670.
Mair’s church and profane works are kept mostly in private collections.
Literature
Seling, Helmut, Die Augsburger Gold- und Silberschmiede 1529-1868, Bd. I-III, München: Beck Verlag, 1980-2007