Skip to main content

Caribbean Silver: A royal spoon and an unidentified possibly Haitian silversmith.

 Up for auction a number of years ago was a group of memorabilia related to King Henri I of Haiti. 

On March 28, 1811, a former slave and now revolutionary leader, Henri Christophe, had declared himself King Henri I of the Kingdom of Haiti. He established a monarchy and attempted to modernise the country through various reforms, including building infrastructure, promoting education, and encouraging agricultural development. Christophe is also known for constructing the Citadelle Laferrière, a massive fortress that remains a symbol of Haitian resilience and ingenuity.

In this lot was a spoon that was later resold through another auction house. It is crested with Henri's crest and has an unknown maker's mark struck three times (Crowned LS or IS) on the back of the spoon. This maker is probably an unidentified Haitian silversmith. There is still much research and work to be done on the silver and goldsmiths of the Caribbean Islands, as well as other colonial decorative arts in the area. 





Photos courtesy of Neals Auctions

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Silversmiths - Dorothy Langlands of Newcastle

Did you know that there have been women silversmiths for hundreds of years?   Women have been noted as silversmiths for hundreds of years.  Widows would often continue on the business of their husbands (often placing their maker's mark in a lozenge) and daughters would enter business partnerships with relatives also in the trade.  Dorothy Langlands was a widow who continued business for 10 years after her husbands death.   For sixty years the Langlands family were the largest manufacturers of silverware in Newcastle, England.   Dorothy Langlands  was the wife of John Langlands II and she took over her husband's business in 1804 when he died. She retired in 1814 and died in 1845.  This means we can date all silver marked with her maker's mark (D.L) to 1804-1814.  This is helpful because a lot of smaller silver items would not have been stamped with the date letter.   Below are two examples of her work.  A nice pair of bright-cut sugar tongs and a set of four Old E
Post a Comment
Read more

What's the rarest? Silver from Scottish Provincial towns.

Antique Scottish Provincial silver is one of the most interesting and confusing areas of silver collecting. There were numerous towns that were producing silver in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were no regulations governing these towns, so each town (or silversmith) came up with their own marks. These were often related to town symbols or coat of arms. It is often the question of rarity that wildly affects the value for these pieces of silver. Below is a table of suggested rarity: Scarce Rare Very Rare Aberdeen Arbroath Cupar Dumfries Ballater Ellon Dundee Banff Fochabers Glasgow (pre-Assay office) Canongate Forres Inverness Elgin Leith Perth Greenock Nairn Iona Peterhead Montrose St. Andrews Paisley Stonehaven Tain Wick This list is published by antiquesilverspoons.co.uk and is based on the research of Richard Turner (who's book, A Directory of Scottish Provincial Silversmiths and Their Ma
2 comments
Read more