Square Jaguar Service Tray

A square silver tray made to complement the Jaguar coffee and tea service, this piece belongs to Spratling's most celebrated hollowware suite. The tray's role is to serve the service, its plain square form providing a quiet ground for the more sculptural pieces it accompanies, an exercise in restraint within a famous group.

The Jaguar service drew on the same pre-Columbian feline imagery Spratling treated across his work, where the animal was rendered as form and pattern rather than literal detail (Morrill, p. 73). The tray carries that program by association, completing the suite without competing with its figural elements.

The piece was included in "The World of William Spratling," the exhibition that toured the U.S. in 1965, placing it before a national audience. As a component of the documented Jaguar service shown in that exhibition, it is a well-anchored example of Spratling's third-period hollowware, the kind of object that comes to market only occasionally.