Eight Sided Rosewood Ashtray

An eight-sided rosewood base lifts this round silver ashtray into the realm of designed objects, the geometric mount giving an everyday item the discipline of a small sculpture. The octagonal wood and the circular metal play one form against the other.

The pairing of silver and rosewood is a constant in Spratling's first-period holloware, where tropical hardwood was treated as a full design partner to the metal rather than a neutral support. The contrast of grain against polish, and of facet against circle, carries the whole composition.

As a first-period object combining silver with a geometrically shaped wood base, it belongs to the line of domestic wares the Taller de Las Delicias produced alongside its jewelry from 1931 onward, and such mixed-material holloware reaches the market only occasionally.