Ladle

Artist/Maker
Blansett, Asa ||Blanchard, Asa __pseudonym
Place Made
Dumfries Virginia United States of America
Date Made
1786-1806
Medium
silver
Dimensions
LOA: 7 1/4″
Accession Number
5695
Description
DESCRIPTION: Small silver sauce ladle with round bowl and applied handle. The handle is slender and engraved near the tip with the initial “L”. The maker’s hallmark is located on the back of the handle, A·BLANSETT.

INSCRIPTION: Engraved with the script initial “L” on face of the handle.

MARK: Struck on reverse of handle with an intaglio “A•BLANSETT” mark in a conforming rectangular reserve.

MAKER: Asa Blansett, better known as Asa Blanchard, is early Kentucky’s most prolific and successful silversmith. His shop and product are significant to the state’s material culture during its formative period and reflect the east-to-west migration of craftsmen in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. He was born circa 1770, probably in Dumfries, Virginia. His surname was variously spelled “Blanset(t),” “Blancet(t),” “Blanchet,” “Blanchit,” or “Blanchard,” often multiple ways within a single document. It is not known under whom he received his training as a silversmith, but he could have trained locally in Dumfries or in nearby Alexandria or Fredericksburg, Virginia. He worked in Dumfries from about 1789 until 1806, using touchmarks of “A•B,” “AB,” and “A•BLANSETT.” At some time before moving West to Kentucky he may have worked in New York and Philadelphia, a claim he made in his first advertisement in Lexington (28 December 1807, “Kentucky Gazette and General Advertiser). No documentation has been found to support Blanchard’s claim of working or even living in either of those cities. Upon his move to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1806, he began using marks with variations of “BLANCHARD” and “A•BLANCHARD.” Over the next thirty-two years, Asa Blanchard worked in Lexington. When he died in 1838, his estate was valued at $40,000. Dozens of pieces of silver hollowware and scores of spoons and ladles survive with Asa Blanchard’s mark, most from his career in Kentucky. See Catherine B. Hollan, “Virginia Silversmiths, Jewelers, Watch- and Clockmakers, 1607-1860: Their Lives and Marks” (McLean, VA: Hollan Press, 2010) and Gary Albert, “Pioneer Refinement: Kentucky’s Mitchum Family Silver Purchased from Asa Blanchard,” MESDA Journal, Vol. 35 (2014); online: http://www.mesdajournal.org/2014/pioneering-refinement-kentuckys-mitchum-family-silver-purchased-asa-blanchard/ (accessed 28 May 2017).

FORM: Large silver ladles were popular for serving punch or soup. Most had plain hemispherical bowls, others were round, and a few had scalloped or shaped bowls. Smaller ladles of silver were most often designated for serving sauces and gravy.

Credit Line
James H. Willcox Jr. Silver Purchase Fund