(12) S. Kirk & Son Sterling Silver Seafood Forks - 8.53 ozt. Delicate hand-made floral pattern repousse on each piece, monogrammed with "L" on the back as well as a maker's mark and the word "sterling." 

Size: 3/4 x 5 3/4 in. 

Weight: 8.53 ozt. 

#6043 . 

The American silversmith Samuel Kirk (February 15th, 1793 - July 6th, 1872) was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and apprenticed at the age of 17 to James Howell of Philadelphia. During his apprenticeship he accompanied his master on a voyage to Europe, where he was introduced to the repoussé and chasing techniques by East India silversmiths. In 1815, upon completing his apprenticeship, he moved to Baltimore where he began a partnership with John Smith. In 1817 he married Albina Powell, and she encouraged him to strike out on his own. He opened his own practice in 1820, eventually going into business with his eldest son and later his second and third sons in the mid 1800s. Between 1815 and 1886 only coin silver was produced by the firm, but it was illegal to melt United States coins so they imported foreign currency to melt into their wares. Much of Kirk’s surviving original pieces are marked S. Kirk and Son or S. Kirk & Sons, and their patterns were so popular in the region that they are still colloquially referred to there as “Baltimore Silver.” In 1872 Kirk died tragically in a house fire, and his son Henry Child Kirk assumed control of the business. S. Kirk & Son first made sterling silver pieces in the year 1886, experimenting with new ways to increase the sturdiness of their wares. They produced both coin and sterling silver until 1896 when Henry Kirk died, at which time the company became S. Kirk & Son Co., run mutually by Henry Kirk Jr. and his uncle Edwin Clarence Kirk, and officially dropped all coin silver use from their lines. In 1924 the company incorporated, but the Great Depression led them to declare bankruptcy and restructure simply as S. Kirk & Son once again in 1932. In 1979 S. Kirk & Son was purchased by the Stieff Company, which renamed itself Kirk Stieff and eventually went defunct in 1990, with all assets absorbed by Lenox and then sold off to Lifetime Brands in 2007. Today Samuel Kirk’s works are considered pinnacles of post-Revolutionary American silversmithing, with pieces displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, and the De Young Museum, including two silver cups for General Lafayette to commemorate his visit to Baltimore, President James Monroe’s flatware service for his daughter’s wedding, and a 48-piece dinner service for the USS Maryland that illustrates almost two hundred scenes from Maryland’s history.