Silver Serpent Rosewood Box

A stylized silver serpent, cut out and applied to the detachable lid, gives this rosewood box its subject and its link to Mexico's Pre-Columbian past. Spratling repeatedly drew on ancient models, but flattened and abstracted them so that, as Morrill writes of his serpents, what was represented was "the pattern of the form rather than the power of Quetzalcoatl" (Morrill, p. 73).

The box itself foregrounds the interplay of silver against wood, the bright cut-out figure standing out from the dark rosewood lid. Morrill notes that in these serpent designs the emphasis fell on "the richness and textural contrast" between silver and its ground, and the same logic governs this box.

The detachable lid makes the serpent the box's organizing feature, an applied silhouette rather than a relief, in keeping with Spratling's preference for stylized pattern over literal depiction.

The box is recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver and in its Centennial Edition. As a documented serpent design in silver and rosewood, it belongs to the body of work in which Spratling translated a Pre-Columbian image into a modern, accessible form.