Ebony Cuff Bracelet with Inset Diamonds

An ebony cuff bracelet inset with silver diamonds, rectangles, and circles, this piece makes dark wood the ground and lets a vocabulary of small silver geometric shapes float across it. It belongs to the third design period, 1951 to 1967.

The inset silver shapes set into ebony are a late expression of the silver-on-wood motif Morrill identifies across Spratling's work, the bright metal punctuating the dark surface (Morrill, p. 73), the wood-and-silver contrast carried onto the wrist (Morrill, p. 224). Varying the inset forms, diamonds, rectangles, circles, gives the band a measured visual rhythm.

A later jewelry piece, it shows Spratling extending his hollowware language of applied silver geometry into wearable form.