Antique French Ladle and silverware

[Mark daley]

I am looking for assistance in identifying this silverware, I have a large complete set that was my grandmother's whose family lived in the Brest area of France. I have heard stories that one of my grandmothers relatives was a courtesan of Napoleons.

As far as I can tell the guarantee mark is a frontal face image with an 8 on the left an a 5 on the right.
The standard or title appears to be a rooster with the number 1 by his feet

I can not make out the makers mark, maybe N I or L with 2 stars at the bottom with something in between the stairs , it also has something at the top of the diamond

From my research this silver may be from the 1798-1809 period.

The silverware also has a crest / coat of arms that may be helpful in identifying this sets owner if it was a custom set, and silverware pattern and silversmith / manufacturer.

If you require pictures of all the different knives, spoons, forks etc. please let me know. The set is very heavy.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanking you in advance.
Mark Daley

[JayT]

Hello and welcome. Thanks for showing us your family heirloom.

You have read the marks on the fork correctly: the maker's mark in a lozenge-shaped reserve, the guarantee mark for Paris 1798-1809, and the rooster silver standard mark for 950 standard silver for the same time period.

The pattern of the fork you show is called filet or thread, and the pattern of the spoon is uniplat. Thus it appears you have a mixed set. Do all pieces in the service have the same marks? As these are standard patterns, I doubt this was a custom-made service. However it was personalized with an engraved coronet on some (or all?) pieces. I suggest you post on the family crests section to see if anyone can help you with that.

If you could find a clearly struck maker's mark on one of the pieces, and clean It out, I could tell you the name of the maker of your service if you post a photo.

[Mark daley]

Ol



Thank you Jay T for your assistance ! I greatly appreciate it.
I checked a spoon and it has 4 marks on its back, along with the same crest.
I will check the entire set to see the pieces and any additional markings, currently in a safe deposit box.

On this spoon it appears to me
That the tiny mark at the bottom? Appears to be a tiny bird?

The next Mark is Y with a tiny star? In the top middle of the Y and then there is a 4 pointed crown above that.

The next Mark is the number 9 with a fancier crown above it

The last mark at the top is large and irregular shape. It appears to be upside down. With a tiny star at the bottom then the letters F or maybe P then R. On top of the letters appears to be a puffy type crown, or maybe a heart. Then at the very top it looks like a tiny star

Thank you again for the help.

Where is the section that you mentioned to check for the crest ?

[JayT]

Hello Mark
Thanks for the additional info. The spoon dates to pre-Revolutionary times, earlier than the fork. This tells us your service is composed of different patterns from different times. Unfortunately the marks look very blurry on my monitor. If you could sharpen them up, I might be able to help identify them. All I can say now is that the spoon was made in a jurisdiction other than Paris, could be Rennes, which would fit the family's origin in Brest. From what can be seen, the 4 marks are a maker's mark, charge mark, date letter, and discharge mark. The crowned 9 is a charge mark from Rennes.
The fact that the engraving is the same on both items could mean several things: either the engraving on the fork was copied from that on the earlier spoon or engraving on both the fork and spoon was done much later.
There is no section where family crests are listed, rather a place where you can post a picture of the crest and ask for help in identifying it.
Good luck!

[Mark daley]

Thanks Jay, you are great! If you are ever in Pittsburgh PA I'll buy you a couple beers!
May take awhile to get to the rest of the stuff.

[JayT]

Do keep us posted Mark, and thanks for your offer of a few beers. At present I'm far away from Pittsburgh, but will keep it in mind.
Regards.

[blakstone]

The spoon is indeed from Rennes, capital of the Ille-et-Vilaine département and the Brittany region, identified as JayT has noted by the "9" charge mark.

This particular crowned "9" charge mark was used in Rennes from 1781 until 1789, but the spoon is more narrowly dated by the jurande (warden's) mark: the crowned "Y", which was used from 19 Feb 1783 to 26 May 1785.

The maker is François-Gaspard-Jean Roysard, baptized 6 Jan 1747, apprenticed 8 Aug 1758 to Léonard Grégoire (1704-1787), master 31 Oct 1771. He evidently died sometime around 1787/1788, as at sometime before August 1788 his widow, Françoise Champion, sold his workshop.

The final mark is the décharge mark, but I can't make it out; it would most likely be a ewer or a bull's head, the corresponding large and small (respectively) décharge marks for 1781-1789.

In summary: Rennes, 1783-1785, by François-Gaspard-Jean Roysard.

Hope this helps!

Ref: Jean-Jacques Rioult, Sophie Vergne, et al., Orfèvres de Haute Bretagne (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2006), pp. 133 & 248. (Also, a very similar armorial uniplat flatware set by Roysard is illustrated on page 452.)

[Mark daley]

Blackstone,

Thank you very much for the additional information. It is greatly appreciated. I will post some more pictures of the silverware, as I just had these pieces out of the bank to start the research project. Hopefully get some better images of the marks.
My mother said the knives are pretty ornate.

Thanks again

Mark

[JayT]

Mark
You'd better buy a six-pack!

[Mark daley]

Haha, will certainly do!! that is some great information you guys have provided!
Where are you guys from?

Can you tell me what is the official term, coat of arms , crest, or coronet , for the "coat of arms " when it is engraved on the back of the silverware?

My mom did say it is proper etiquette that when setting the table that silverware with the coat of arms that it can be placed top side down to show it off, otherwise it is always topside up. Will come in handy when I eat my cereal with a 250 year old spoon!

I was just wondering since you always hear about English silver, are they equal in purity (higher silver content) or does one country typically has purer silverware?

Thanks again!

[blakstone]

The "coat-of-arms" is technically the shield at the center of the armorial: one your piece, the oval with the ship. The "crest" is the device which appears above the arms: on your piece, the crown (or, more precisely, a coronet). A coat-of arms is unique to one family, while a crest can be shared by several. The two figures on the sides are called "supporters".

When the crest is a coronet, it usually indicates an order of nobility, and the design of the coronet is quite specific to the order. Your coronet is that of a baron, the lowest order of French nobility.

As all of these parts of an armorial are very specific, tracing them to a particular family can be time-consuming. I'm pretty adept at tracing English armorials, but less so with Continental ones. I'll see what I can find.

Finally, the Paris silver standard of the time was 95.8% pure silver, slightly higher than the English sterling standard of 92.5%. Most cities worked in the Paris standard, but there were exceptions; I'll check my reference when I get home to see if Rennes had a lower standard.

[Mark daley]

Blackstone

Thanks actually found a box today that had some of her family's names and dates, will post it once I get it organized. On a document it appears the city of Rennes had a coat of arms that appears similar but with lizards, of all things, as supporters instead of lions.

Thanks for all your work. I am helping out a guy in Australia concerning scale modeling so it's like a big circle based on our hobbies and areas of expertise.

Thanks

Mark