Applied Star Silver Bowl

Five silver stars ring the outside of this bowl, raised against the metal and seated on a rosewood base, a piece from Spratling's First Design Period of 1931 to 1946. The star is among the simplest of the Pre-Columbian and folk-derived motifs Spratling drew into his vocabulary, and here it organizes the entire surface as a rhythmic band.

The rosewood base is characteristic: Spratling habitually married silver to tropical hardwood, letting the dark wood ground the bright metal. On a bowl this pairing turns a serving object into a small exercise in the contrast of materials that defined his hollowware.

The design is recorded in Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. Early hollowware from the founding decade of the Taxco revival is among the more sought-after parts of Spratling's surviving output.