This spoon is a typical example of a type popular across Europe in the eighteenth century until about 1770. The style emerged in England in around 1710, and has become known as 'Hanoverian' because it was popular during the reigns of the first two Hanoverian monarchs (George I and George II), who ruled between 1714-1760. The drop at the heel of this example (where the stem joins the bowl) is characteristic of spoons made after around 1730. In the 1730s, the ‘rat-tail’ on the back of spoon bowls gave way to the ‘drop’ or ‘double drop’, a development which meant that there was an area of plain surface on the back of the spoon bowl that offered space for embellishment. From the 1730s until the 1780s, the backs of spoon bowls, particularly of teaspoons, were embellished with a stamped design. These are referred to as ‘fancy backs’ by modern collectors. The design was added just below, or attached to, the drop or ‘heel’ of the spoon. The earliest motif was a shell, sometimes combined with a scroll pattern, although other designs, such as the ostrich feather crest of the Prince of Wales, are also found. This type of embellishment is rare on larger spoons and on forks.
The decorated bowl back is designed to be appreciated when the spoon is placed on the table with its open bowl down (the opposite of how it would be set on the table today). The same is true of the finial, is and this is why the initials of the original owners have been engraved on what we would now think of as the back of the spoon. This arrangement followed French fashions, which had developed at the end of the seventeenth century.