Tea Strainer with Rosewood Handles on Two Sides

Two rosewood handles set on opposite sides of a silver tea strainer resolve, in their placement, into the shape of a pre-Columbian arrow: a functional object given an ancient Mexican silhouette through the arrangement of its parts. The warm wood against the bright metal is a Spratling signature, here pressed into both use and reference.

The strainer belongs to the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946. The reading of an everyday utensil as a pre-Columbian form is exactly the translation Spratling made his method, taking ancient motifs and rendering them in usable modern objects (Morrill, p. 27).

Hand-wrought tableware combining silver with tropical hardwood survives in modest numbers from the first decade and is collected as an example of the workshop's table production.