Continental Solidarity Plaque

A silver plaque of clasped hands held over the joined continents of North and South America, this is the design Spratling called "Continental Solidarity," an explicitly political image of hemispheric unity made during the years of the Good Neighbor policy. The clasped-hands motif recurs across his work, and here it is given direct geopolitical meaning in the two Americas beneath it.

From the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, the plaque speaks to Spratling's role as a cultural bridge between the United States and Mexico, the "Silver Bill" of the wartime press. It is recorded in Morrill's Maestros de Plata.

Worked in silver and rosewood and marked with the joined "WS" Spratling adapted from his horse brand (Morrill, p. 39), the plaque's standing rests on its named, documented design and its political subject. A period mark and intact wood are what anchor an example.