Clasped Hands Button

A pair of clasped hands rendered in silver, this button compresses a familiar emblem of fellowship into a small functional object, the kind of figural fastener that ran through Spratling's production alongside his jewelry and hollowware. Buttons let Spratling carry a complete sculptural idea at miniature scale, and the clasped-hands motif reads clearly even at button size.

The design was offered in more than one size, the larger measuring an inch and a half, and surviving examples carry the WS circle mark together with the oval Spratling Silver stamp. Those marks place the piece securely within the documented Spratling workshop output.

The button is recorded in the scholarly literature, appearing in Penny Morrill and Carole Berk's Mexican Silver: 20th Century Handwrought Jewelry & Metalwork and in Morrill's William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance: Maestros de Plata. That documentation, together with the hallmarks, makes it a well-anchored example of Spratling's small-format figural work, which comes to market only occasionally.