Ice Cream Forks

Sets of specialized silver were favorite gifts for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas. Perhaps this was the case for these ice cream forks belonging to the Fricks. They were produced by the Gorham Manufacturing Company as early as 1894, and were designed by the sculptor Florentin Antoine Heller, a student of French academic artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. Heller’s Mythologique pattern features a Greek mythological scene depicted in fine detail, demonstrating advances in machine technology in the final decades of the 19th century.