Liqueur Cup on Pedestal

A silver liqueur cup raised on a pedestal foot, banded three times and set with six applied half-balls below the rim, this First Design Period goblet shows Spratling's holloware vocabulary in a small drinking vessel. The three bands, at foot, neck, and top, give the cup its rhythm.

Holloware and table silver were a genuine part of the workshop's production alongside jewelry, all hand-wrought to the same standard (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994, pp. 53, 251). A pedestal liqueur cup belongs to that program of fine table objects.

The applied half-balls are a signature Spratling element, the small silver domes formed by hand in the early workshop (Morrill, p. 39), here used as a band of ornament below the rim. The encircling bands and the simple raised form keep the cup architectural and restrained.

Drinking vessels and other holloware survive in smaller numbers than Spratling's jewelry and come to market only occasionally, so a First Period liqueur cup is a useful example of his work at the table.