Rosewood Picture Frame

A picture frame of rosewood and silver, finished with a beaded edge and mitered corners, this First Design Period object brings Spratling's jewelry sensibility to a household piece. The warm rosewood is framed and detailed in silver, a pairing of materials he favored.

Domestic silver and wood objects were a real part of the early workshop's output alongside jewelry, and Spratling's shop produced frames and similar pieces for the home (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994, p. 36). The silver-and-wood combination here anticipates the textural contrast he developed more fully in later work (Morrill, p. 73).

The beaded edge was built from small silver balls of the kind the workshop formed by hand from melted wire (Morrill, p. 39), and the mitered corners show careful joinery in the wood. Together they give a plain rectangular frame a crafted, finished character.

The frame is recorded in Phyllis M. Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. Frames and tabletop pieces survive in smaller numbers than his jewelry, so a documented rosewood-and-silver example is a useful instance of his work for the home.