Court Ivory Spoon

Johann Georg Kern (1622–1698), circle of
South German, ca 1670
Ivory, fire-gilt silver
Length 14 cm

Provenance: Germany, private collection

SOLD - Please contact us for similar artwork!

This superb spoon distinguished by a handle made as sculpture in the round and a bowl with relief on the back is a fine piece of figurative ivory carving on a small scale. The handle is formed as a putto, clasping his arms around a lush garland densely woven of grapes on the vine, apples and pomegranates flowing down his back. The nude childish figure stands on a C-scroll leading into the spoon bowl, on the back of which the usual spoon rat tail has been turned into a cartilaginous vertebrate spine with a suggestion of undulating ‘ribs’ subtly carved in what is known as the auricular style of decoration so popular in the seventeenth century. Comparable ivory sculptures depicting putti bacchanalia are diagnostic features of the work of Johann Georg Kern, a south German sculptor who specialized in carving reliefs on ivory tankard walls. His works found their way into collections amassed by European aristocrats and affluent patricians as valuable Kunstkammer objects. Just as Johann Georg Kern’s ivory tankards were not intended as drinking vessels, the magnificent ivory spoon presented here is purely a choice collector’s item rather than an eating utensil. Surviving seventeenth-century inventories of princely Kunst- and Wunderkammer indicate how highly prized such magnificent cutlery made of expensive materials was at that time. Because they were so fragile, only a very few pieces of cutlery of this kind made for display in collections are extant. The good condition of the present magnificent ivory spoon is, therefore, all the more remarkable. Two carved ivory spoons that are virtually identical to it are held in the collections of the Museo degli Argenti in Florence and the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich.