The triumvirate of knife, fork and spoon together was in common use in Europe by the end of the 1700s. All three pieces traveled from place to place with their owners -- often worn on the body in a kind of holster -- until the following century, when households began stockpiling utensils. This opened the door to flatware as a visible marker of wealth, developing patterns, crests, and flourishes that reflected on the household's stature and its taste.
And so we arrive at the late 19th-century sterling nut picks, strawberry spoons, and monogrammed terrapin forks on display at the Cooper-Hewitt, which seem like artifacts of a civilization as distant as Pompeii, not our own relatively recent Gilded Age. When Mark Twain gave that title to his 1873 novel, it was a caustic reference to the era's rampant corruption in business and politics, but it is also tempting to apply it to its culture of excess in flatware. "One service at the time had over 300 different pieces," Coffin said as we inspected an ornate gold-covered dessert service presented to J.P. Morgan by the understandably grateful directors of the New York Central Railroad.
Not only Morgans and Carnegies were caught up in the frenzy for flatware.
"There is something very touching about many of these pieces" said Annamarie Sandecki, the director of the Tiffany and Co archive, which loaned numerous pieces to the show. "We were such a young country, with no inherited wealth, no family silver. Buying silverware was a way to establish yourself as a person of substance."
Gilded Age designers brought Japanese influence and playful naturalistic decoration to the table, affixing tiny silver birds' nests with eggs to egg spoons and applying scalloped edges to scallop forks.
"This was one of the first art movements to start in America and then make its way to Europe," Coffin said.
In return, modern designers in Germany and Scandinavia stripped utensils down to their most unadorned. Throughout the process, designers have tinkered with the basic forms to see if they could be improved on or consolidated. The spork, according to Coffin, is probably the earliest innovation, but the Cooper-Hewitt show also includes knorks, knoons and even an intriguing utensil that can act as all three.
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