Beaded Baby Cup

A silver baby cup ringed with small silver beads around its rolled base. The beaded band is the single ornamental gesture, lifting an otherwise plain vessel into something deliberately designed, the rhythm of beads echoing a device Spratling used across his hollowware.

Christening and baby cups belonged to the broad range of domestic silver the workshop produced alongside the jewelry, all hand-wrought at Las Delicias. The reliance on one repeated element, here the beading, to carry a simple form was a hallmark of that table silver.

With no recorded reference and the form itself the main fact, this is a modest, well-made example of Spratling's domestic production. Such pieces survive less often than the jewelry, which gives them a quiet appeal for collectors of his hollowware.