Watch List notes:

"It was only in the days of Elizabeth that silver plate began to displace wooden and pewter utensils in the houses of the people, but before the close of the century in which she died, lustres, standards, tables, jars, and irons, sconces and mirrors were fashioned in silver." | Tudor (1485-1603), Elizabethan Cast Silver and Parcel Gilt "Maidenhead" Spoon, c. 1590, unattributed maker's mark "GIV" in shield on bowl and twice sunk at base of stem, 104mm x 4.5mm. x 3.5mm. [stem]; 57.5mm. x 44.5mm. [bowl], 15mm. x 9mm. x 7mm. [icon]; 30.68g [1 oz; 1dwt; 12, 1/10 grns] (Jackson's, English Goldsmith's and their Makers Marks [1905], pp. 442 [Lion Sejant]; cf. Perry & Phillips Auction, 1 October 2013, lot 145), a small dent to reverse of bowl, and moderate surface scratching from repeated use, well-polished with only modest traces of parcel gilding in recesses of terminal, about very fine, an interesting and scarce Elizabethan relic.
Provenance,
The Robert P Ball Collection of English Silverware
, ,
Maidenhead Spoons first appear in the late fourteenth century with the decorated specifically associated with the Virgin Mary from the outset. In an inventory for Durham Priory (1446), the following declaration is made for a similar piece of plate: "ij coclearia argentea at deaurata unius sectae, cum ymaginibus Beatae Mariae in fine eorundem" ("two partially gilded silver spoons with the image of the Holy Mary at their ends"). In Jackson's seminal publication, a Lion Sejant topped-spoon is recorded with the same mark and attributed to the final decade of the 16th Century. (cf. https://archive.org/details/cu31924030681757/page/442/mode/1up?q=%22GIV%22).
Estimate: £800 - £1200