Pie Server

A pierced, wedge-shaped server and an incised handle make this pie server a study in how Spratling carried his design vocabulary onto serving pieces. The piercing lightens the wedge and gives it pattern, while the incised lines on the handle supply the kind of engraved definition he used across his flatware.

The combination of piercing and incised line is a recurring device in Spratling's tablewares, ornament drawn directly from the working surfaces of the object rather than added to them. The wedge form follows function while the cutwork makes it a designed piece.

As a first-period silver serving piece built on piercing and incising, it belongs to the hand-wrought flatware the workshop produced alongside its jewelry, and individual servers of this kind reach the market only occasionally.