A rare antique silver wine taster or ‘taste-de-vin’ of simple plain form with a serpent handle. Excellent quality and heavy gauge silver. Hand engraved on the side with the name Pierre Davy, member of a well-known Normandy family. Weight 124 grams, 3.9 troy ounces. Height 3.5 cm (4.1 cm to top of handle). Diameter 9.2 cm. Spread 12.1 cm. Stamped on the base with triple stamped French silver mark C.1795
£595.

Literature: The saucer shaped taster was already in use as early as the 14th century BC in Minoan Crete and has been essential in the production of wine right through to the present time. It is used by the sommelier to determine a wine's quality by assessing the colour, clarity, bouquet and taste. The majority of wine tasters in existence are French. The owners often engraved their name on the taster whose single flat handle often accommodated a neck cord. Very few English wine tasters were made because wine was not a national product however a number were produced during a short period in the second half of the 17th century.

Signed/Inscribed: Triple master silversmith mark on French artifacts 1672-1798. It is not rare for collectors and dealers to find French silver artifacts of this period bearing the master silversmith mark repeated three times. Objects bearing only the master's mark repeated three times (of the whole series of marks) are usually attributed to a subscriber-master