Heart Tipped Stirring Spoon

Two flattened wires joined into a stem, terminating in a heart and ball, form the handle of this stirring spoon, with a shovel-shaped bowl flanked by silver beads where stem meets bowl. The wirework is characteristic of the way Spratling built form from line, the same handwrought logic that ran from his jewelry into his flatware.

The spoon belongs to the first design period, 1931-1946, when the workshop's serving pieces shared the bead-and-wire vocabulary of its jewelry. Decoration here grows from structure, the heart-and-ball finial the only flourish.

Early handwrought serving spoons of this kind survive in modest numbers.