Beaded Rosewood Salad Fork

A rosewood salad-server fork with twelve silver beads set into its tapered handle, described in a Spratling catalogue as "encrusted nails," this serving piece makes a simple repeated accent the heart of its design. The beads march down the tapering wood in a measured row, the bright silver punctuating the warm rosewood.

That use of silver beads embedded in wood belongs to Spratling's later vocabulary, where applied silver dots gave his wooden objects rhythm and a sense of refinement (Morrill, p. 73). The catalogue's own term, "encrusted nails," captures the deliberate, almost architectural placement.

The design was also made using mahogany in place of rosewood, so the fork belongs to a small group distinguished by wood. It is recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver. Wood-and-silver serving pieces of this kind come to market only occasionally.