Vesoul: Silver Sprinkling Spoon Or Sprinkler By Claude-françois Billard, 1777-1778

- Sugar spoon or sprinkler
- Forged and pierced silver
- Vesoul, 1777-1778
- Master silversmith: Claude-François Billard, 1776-1799
- Length: 24 cm, spoon diameter: 8 cm; weight: 109 g
- Very good condition

- Sprinkling spoon of a double-lined model. The spoon's mouth rim lined with a double line is decorated with a pierced decoration in the center delimited by a navette chain of a symmetrical rosette of navettes with a heart surmounted by scrolls of forked leaves; the border is a decoration of interlacing tulips and forked leaves surmounted by a heart.

- We find this principle of pierced decoration on the reception drawing of the silversmith Jean-François Lafontaine, received on September 2, 1773 in Vesoul; drawing which includes three pieces: a stew spoon, a "gondola" or curon and a sugar spoon of a single-plate model with a very similar pierced edge [2, pp.70-71]. Two sprinklers by Claude-François Billard, one sold at Delon-Hoebanx on 2-07-2017 n°171 and at Artcurial, on 18 September 2019, n°187 (Altounian collection). A last one by the goldsmith Claude-François Michel from the Jourdan-Barry collection is kept in the Bilgi Kenber collection [1, p.248]. All these spoons listed are characterized by a large size and a wide spoon (between 23 and 24 cm and 8 cm in diameter).
- Hallmarks: master silversmith: CF surmounting the arms of the city, B for Jean-François Billard, master silversmith in Vesoul from 1776 beyond 1799 (partly illegible) [2; p.152 & 176]; warden's mark: D surmounted by a fleur-de-lis for Vesoul, from December 1777 to December 1778 [2, n°335, Pl. IX]; recognition: the coat of arms of the city of Vesoul, a lion rising from a crescent moon, Vesoul, after 1775 [2, pp.700-701]
- Ref. : [1] Kenber, Bilgi: "Sugar spoons in 18th century French goldsmithing", 2003; [2] Brault-Lerch, Solange: "Goldsmiths of Franche-Comté and the principality of Montbéliard from the Middle Ages to the 19th century", Geneva, Droz, 1976