Six Solid Silver Fruit Knives

Paris, 1789 – Jean-François-Marie Delaunay

Set of six rare solid silver fruit knives, made in Paris in 1789, at the very last moment of the Ancien Régime.

The line is of exemplary neoclassical purity: slender silver blade, ferrule and base also in silver, ebony handle of a deep black, underlined with a DM encrypted oval cartridge, engraved with a period.

Intended for fruit tasting - whose acidity altered the steel blades - these knives testify to the extreme refinement of tableware on the eve of the French Revolution.

⸻

Punches - Paris 1789

• Charge punch: A in a circle (1789, used until 1792)

• Jurande stamp: P crowned, vintage 89

• Discharge punch: oak leaf

• Scuter brand: ermine in a rectangle

The latter corresponds to Jean-François-Marie Delaunay, a Parisian knife merchant whose comparable productions are preserved at the

Louvre Museum

(Department of Art Objects), attesting to the quality and institutional recognition of this production.

⸻

An object at the heart of History

Dated precisely from the year 1789, this knife belongs to this pivotal period when the Louis XVI taste reaches its perfect balance: sobriety, measured proportions, elegance without overload.

The absence of a coat of arms in favor of a simple monogram underlines a private order, probably from an enlightened Parisian bourgeois milieu.

⸻

Dimensions

• Length: 20.5 cm

⸻

Patrimonial interest

• Piece strictly dated 1789

• Parisian production authenticated by complete punches

• Knife pack identified and kept in national collections

• Neoclassical elegance emblematic of the Louis XVI taste

• Rare table object