Rosewood Tipped Wire Earrings

Earrings formed from a curved band that reads as four silver wires, each terminating in a piece of curved rosewood, this design lets the metal flow into the wood as a continuous line rather than a join. They date to the first design period, 1931 to 1946.

The wire-and-wood pairing is Spratling's favored material contrast at the scale of an earring, the warm rosewood finishing the cool metal exactly as Morrill describes across his designs (Morrill, p. 224). Treating the band as four parallel wires gives a small object an architectural rhythm.

A refined early piece, it shows the workshop applying its hollowware logic to jewelry.