Handsome Earrings of Tortoise Shell

Squares of tortoiseshell framed in silver, these earrings turn on the contrast Spratling returned to again and again, the warm translucency of an organic material set against the cool reflective metal. They are recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver.

Tortoiseshell was a material Spratling used to emphasize textural contrast with silver, the same interplay Morrill notes in his serpent pendant and other pieces of the period (Morrill, p. 73). Framing the shell in plain silver lets the material itself carry the design.

A small, well-documented pairing of materials, it shows Spratling's restraint with ornament when the materials are doing the work.