Square Ashtray of Silver Set into a Square Rosewood Frame

A square silver ashtray set into a square rosewood frame, fitted with a single projecting cigarette holder, this object joins a practical metal dish to a warm wooden surround in Spratling's familiar table idiom. It dates to the first design period, 1931 to 1946.

The square silver insert framed in rosewood is the material contrast Morrill places at the center of Spratling's table designs (Morrill, p. 224), the projecting holder adding the one functional flourish. The strict squareness keeps the object firmly within the geometric register of the early workshop.

Ashtrays of this kind belong to the objects the workshop produced as smoking accessories and showed in the 1965 "World of William Spratling" exhibition (Morrill, p. 77).