Buttons and Bows Coffee Service

A full coffee or tea service, teapot, sugar, creamer, and tray, executed in the Discos pattern that the dealer Conquistador nicknamed "Buttons and Bows." Ivory insulators on the teapot handle keep the metal cool to the touch. The interest is in the complete suite: hollowware of this ambition shows Spratling's workshop operating at the scale of a full table service rather than a single object.

The use of ivory against silver is part of Spratling's broader practice of combining materials, contrasting the reflective metal with the warmth of substances like ivory and rosewood, an approach Morrill aligns with the French silversmith Puiforcat (Morrill, p. 224). Here the ivory is both functional and decorative.

Coffee and tea sets were among Spratling's most considered hollowware, and were shown in the 1965 McNay exhibition "The World of William Spratling" alongside his trays and serving pieces (Morrill, p. 77).

Complete services survive far less often than individual pieces, so an intact Discos set with its ivory insulators is a significant survival for collectors of Spratling's table silver.