Silver Service Teapot

This teapot anchors a full coffee and tea service, its handle and lid finial worked in finely carved rosewood and its body banded with silver wire, a suite with an unusually well-documented design history. As the largest piece of the service, it carries the design language the rest of the set echoes.

The silver wire banding is the device Spratling used across his career, here the unifying detail of a coordinated suite, while the carved-rosewood handle and finial supply the wood-and-silver contrast central to his hollowware.

The record is precise. In July 1945 Spratling resigned from Spratling y Artesanos but agreed to provide roughly sixty-five new designs, and his October 1945 notes include instructions marked importante for the fabrication of this service, with drawings detailing the handle and banding.

Because Spratling y Artesanos declared bankruptcy and ceased operations in 1946, few of these services are believed to have been made. The teapot is documented in the Centennial Edition of Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver, and as the central piece of a scarce service it reaches the market only rarely.