Ebony Salad Spoon

A very large ebony salad server with a looped handle, the dark wood inset with silver circles and rectangular pieces, this spoon is the companion to Spratling's matching salad fork and shares its sculptural ambition. The looped handle and the inset silver geometry turn a serving piece into an object of design, the bright metal accents ordering the expanse of ebony.

The inset-silver-on-wood treatment reflects Spratling's later interest in the dialogue of wood and metal, the same approach behind his silver-dotted wooden pieces (Morrill, p. 73). Across the large server the contrast carries the design.

The spoon was included in the 1965 traveling exhibition "The World of William Spratling" and is recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver. With its exhibition history and documentation, it is a well-anchored example of Spratling's wood-and-silver flatware, which comes to market only occasionally.