Tortoise Shell Hand Bracelet

Six linked tortoiseshell hands, each carrying a silver circle, make up this bracelet, joining the workshop's tortoiseshell-and-silver vocabulary to a figural, repeated motif of the human hand. The hands are linked into a flexible band, each marked by its silver disc against the mottled shell.

The bracelet dates to the Third Design Period of 1951 to 1967 and is well documented in the workshop's own pricing: it appears in the 1958 to 1959 wholesale catalogue, again in 1961, and in the 1967 Spratling catalogue, the rising prices tracing the model across nearly a decade of production. The pairing of tortoiseshell with silver dots reflects the playful, sophisticated direction Morrill describes in Spratling's work of this period (Morrill, p. 73).

Recorded in Goddard's field guide, the bracelet is a documented example of the workshop's late tortoiseshell jewelry, its long catalogue history marking it as a sustained part of the production.