Postby blakstone » Mon Nov 30, 2009 10:50 pm
It's Wiesbaden - very often a fleur-de-lys from the city arms was incorporated along with the löthige and the maker's initials into a single mark. The maker is Wilhelm Ferdinand Schellenberg (1780-1832). Apprenticed as a buckle-maker in Frankfurt, he worked for some years in Paris before settling in Wiesbaden in 1807. By 1814 he was working as a silversmith. He was appointed court Gold & Silversmith to the Grand Duke of Hesse and served as Magistrate 1825-27. He was from a large family of Wiesbaden silversmiths, but apparently they were all cousins; he had neither direct ancestors nor descendants who were silversmiths.
Ref:
Wolfgang Scheffler, Goldschmiede Hessens (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), p. 751-52, Wiesbaden maker 7c, mark #878.
Werner Schmidt, "Wiesbaden", in Weltkunst, 1 Sep 2002, v. 8, pp. 1264-1286, maker 72, mark #72/2. Also, illustration #4 on page 1265 shows a lancet soup spoon by W.F. Schellenberg nearly identical to yours.
