Pair Of Streling Silver Salt Cellars By Jean Jouffard, Adge, 1727-1747

- Pair of sided salt shakers
- Silver, hammered and soldered
- By master goldsmith, Jean Jouffard, received in Narbonne for Adge (France), 1727-1747
- Agde, 1727-1747
- Length: 74 mm; width: 63mm; height: 25mm; weight: 104g
- Good condition, no restoration

- Pair of rectangular salt cellars with cut sides resting on a solid base surmounted by a quarter round, above, a convex side supports a molding in which an oval salt cellar is embedded. - This model of sided salt shaker is a typical example of production from the first half of the 18th century. This production is found throughout the Kingdom from the beginning of the 18th century, in Provence and Languedoc, including a pair by the goldsmith Joseph-Marie Lamalatière from Avignon, another by the goldsmith Jean-Jacques Bonabel in Nîmes, with dimensions and shape identical to our pair. This pair presented seems to be the only one known from the Jurande d'Agde. An olive spoon is also known from the goldsmith Jouffard.

- Hallmarks: master goldsmith (three times under the salt cellars): I, I with star surmounted by a Languedoc cross, for Jean Jouffard master goldsmith in Agde between January 1, 1727 and 1747, date of his death [Thuile, T.IV p.290]. - Many goldsmithes communities of Languedoc, very far from the control center of the Mint, were not constituted as "jurande". In order to guarantee both the quality of the work pieces produced and to collect the tax, the administration affirmed the rights for each community for a predefined fixed amount, making both the goldsmith responsible for the quality of its achievements and accountable to the administration of the rights payable : the community is "abonné" (subscriber). Also, in Agde, the collection of trademark rights is done by annual subscription paid by the goldsmiths to the sub-farmer, sometimes one of the goldsmiths, then, from around 1750, the pieces of goldsmithing are brought to the sub-farmer at the town of Béziers for control and the affixing of the hallmark, charge and discharge hallmarks.
- Ref. : Cassan, Claude-Gérard: “Les orfèvres Avignon and Comtat Venaissin”, Eléonore Paris, Paris, 1984; Thuile, Jean: “Histoire de l'orfèvrerie en Languedoc, Généralités de Montpellier et de Toulouse”, Ed. F. de Nobele, Paris, 1964