George III sterling silver sugar tongs

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A set of George III sterling silver sugar tongs from Joseph Cooper, London. They are a narrow U-shaped piece of metal that terminate in shallow oval-shaped bowls at each end. The outer surface is decorated with a pattern stamped or etched into the silver. At the top of the tongs, near the bend in the metal, is a large oval outlined in small raised dots. Within the outline is a double wavy line of smaller dots. In the center of the oval are three stylized flowers in a row. Each flower has four petals, with each consecutive flower sharing the petal with the blossom next to it. There are small dots scattered around the petals. At each of the two-pointed terminus of the large oval is a large dot with five lines radiating horizontally outwardly from the oval. The surface of the tongs' arms is edged with a repeating linear pattern of triangle shaped wedges.

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