Spoon tray explained

A spoon tray is a tray used to rest the spoons that are either hot, wet, or prepared for serving. The spoon tray, usually elongated, can be found in the tea, dinner, or cabaret services.^[1] The spoon tray is sometimes called a spoon boat or a spooner (although some sources reserve the latter term for vessels used for the vertical arrangement of spoons^[2]).

The tray looks similar to the pickle or olive dish, but its edges are frequently flattened.^[3] Some spoon trays have slotted areas at their rims, to rest spoons more securely. The spoon boat was a typical^[4] part of a tea equipage in the first half of the 18th century, possibly due to the habit of drinking tea from the saucer that precluded using it to rest the spoon.^[5] Britain was importing novel porcelain "boats for spoons" from China in 1722 that were replacing local silver versions available since 1690s.^[6] The tea spoon boats went out of fashion by 1790s.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Book: John Patrick Cushion . George Savage . Harold Newman . 1985 . An Illustrated Dictionary of Ceramics: Defining 3,054 Terms Relating to Wares, Materials, Processes, Styles, Patterns, and Shapes from Antiquity to the Present Day . Thames and Hudson . 270 . 978-0-500-27380-7 . 12938517 . spoon-tray.
2. Book: Ellen Schroy . 21 June 2010 . Warman's Depression Glass Field Guide: Values and Identification . Penguin . 502 . 978-1-4402-1517-9 . https://books.google.com/books?id=rhFjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT502 . Spooner.
3. Book: Bill Boggess . Louise Boggess . 1977 . American Brilliant Cut Glass . Crown Publishers . 122 . 978-0-517-52525-8 . 1008392050 .
4. Jamieson . Ross W. . The Essence of Commodification: Caffeine Dependencies in the Early Modern World . . 2001 . 35 . 2 . 269–294 . 10.1353/jsh.2001.0125 . 18546583 .
5. Book: Beth Carver Wees . 1997 . English, Irish, & Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute . Hudson Hills . 474–475 . 978-1-55595-117-7 . 1008389531 .
6. Book: Lippert, Catherine Beth . 1987 . Eighteenth-century English Porcelain in the Collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art . . 186 . 978-0-936260-11-2 . 1008105969 .