Carving Fork

Flatware was central to Spratling's domestic line, and this carving fork shows how he carried the silver-and-rosewood idiom from his ashtrays and boxes onto the table. The rosewood handle is banded with three applied silver rings, while steel prongs answer the demands of the object's actual use.

The combination is practical and considered at once: hardwood for grip and warmth, silver for ornament, steel where strength is needed. That willingness to mix materials by function rather than for show is typical of the workshop's tablewares, which were hand-wrought to the same standard as the jewelry.

Las Delicias produced flatware, holloware, and jewelry side by side from 1931, and Spratling's serving pieces circulated widely through his catalogues and outlets. The applied silver band is part of the same repeating vocabulary of rings and discs found across his first-period work.

The fork is recorded in Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. As a first-period serving piece it belongs to the practical end of Spratling's output, where his design language was applied to objects meant for daily handling.