Cholulteca Cream Pitcher

A small cream pitcher in silver plate, with a strap handle of rolled edges and a rolled-edge base, carries an applied motif on one side: the cross-section of a conch shell. That spiral was one of Spratling's recurring forms, drawn from the sea and used across both jewelry and holloware. The piece is recorded in Phyllis Goddard's Spratling field guide.

The conch cross-section gives an otherwise plain utilitarian vessel a single point of interest, the spiral set against the smooth body of the pitcher. The rolled edges at handle and base are the small finishing decisions that lift a functional object.

Executed in plate rather than solid silver, a pitcher like this belonged to the more affordable end of the line, and the applied conch ties it firmly to the Spratling design vocabulary.