Ashtray Mounted on Three Rosewood Legs

A triangular silver ashtray with a round indentation at its center, raised on three rosewood legs, this piece pairs the reflective metal dish with the warm wood of its supports in the material contrast that runs through Spratling's holloware. The legs lift the geometric tray and turn a functional object into a small sculptural composition.

The design was included in "The World of William Spratling," the museum exhibition that toured the United States in 1965 (Morrill, p. 77), where the inventory of silver on display specifically listed ashtrays among the objects shown. To find this form among that body of work places it within the public canon of his table silver.

The piece is recorded in the literature, appearing in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver, the principal reference for his work. It dates to his Third Design Period, 1951 to 1967, the final decade in which he paired silver with rosewood across his objects. A tri-legged ashtray carried into the 1965 touring exhibition sits among the recognized examples of his late holloware.