wood

carved from one piece of wood. There is a geometric shape cut out of the lower part of the neck. The thin end of the spoon has a circle cut out of it. It's end is flat.

One geometric shape is cut out of the lower part of the neck.

length - 16.2 cm; width (max) - 5 cm

The collector (Borg De Balzan) from whom the museum acquired the item, died in Florence in 1896 (Emanuela found his obituary in the journal, founded in 1871 by Paolo Mantegazza, called l'Archivio per l'Antropologia e l'Etnologia, [n.26, 1896, p.369] ). The collector's name is listed in the musuem's catalogue record.

Item was acquired by the MNAEF from Borg De Balzan. His obituary states that De Balzan was from Malta, worked as a representative of the French government in New York. He was an art collector who opened his private gallery to the public. He donated his rich collection of objects to the MNAEF, which is described in the obituary as the first building block of the Museum's holdings. [l'Archivio per l'Antropologia e l'Etnologia, [n.26, 1896, p.369]. This item was likely originally classified with a similiar spoon - in a copy of this item's entry in the museum's large catalogue, which is still used to keep information about the items, there is a note, dated from 1983, that states in the collection there are two spoons, and designates two separate numbers for each: 6754 - 6754/1.

Emanuela Rossi and Stacey Loyer

This record was created as part of a research project, funded by a Faculty Research Grant from the Canadian Embassy in Italy in August 2007, Emanuela Rossi.

Stacey Loyer helped with the translation for this record.