Salt Shaker of Shaped Rosewood

Shaped rosewood gives this salt shaker its character: a turned body of warm tropical hardwood capped in silver, with a ring of eight silver beads around the base. The combination is pure Spratling, where the figure of the wood is allowed to carry the form and silver enters as crown and footing rather than as surface decoration.

Wood-and-silver tableware of this kind extended into the dinner service the same material logic Spratling used in his serving pieces and flatware. Rosewood was a favored partner to silver in the Taxco workshops, and a small object like this shows the pairing reduced to essentials.

The design was reissued and is recorded in Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide, the standard reference for identifying authentic examples. Pieces at this scale rarely surface intact with their original sets.