Large Silver Tray with Incised Swirls and Loops

This large tray with incised swirls and loops was conceived as part of a set, designed to complement Spratling's Provincial coffee and tea service, and it carries one of the most decorated records in his holloware. The flowing incised pattern across the surface ties the tray visually to the service it accompanied.

Its documented honors set it apart: the tray and the Provincial service together were awarded a prize by the National Syndicate of Silver Manufacturers of Mexico, and the design was included in "The World of William Spratling," the exhibition that toured the United States in 1965. An example of this tray is held in the permanent collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The incised swirls and loops belong to the freer, more painterly surface treatment of Spratling's third design period, where engraving carried movement across a large plane of silver. As a coordinated component of a prize-winning service, the tray represents holloware at its most ambitious in his late output.

The tray is recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver, and as an exhibited, awarded, and museum-held design it stands among the most fully documented pieces of his holloware.