Heavy Hand Hammered Round Silver Bowl with Rope Trim Around

The whole argument of this bowl is in its surface: a heavy round form raised by hand, the hammer marks left to catch the light, finished at the top rim with a twisted rope band. That hand-hammered holloware was central to what the Taller de las Delicias produced, the workshop Spratling opened in 1931 and built into the engine of the Taxco silver revival (Morrill, p. 14).

The rope trim is a recurring Spratling device, a length of twisted silver used to define an edge and give a plain vessel a single ornamental note. Here it frames the rim and answers the weight of the hammered body without competing with it.

Holloware of this period sat alongside the jewelry and flatware the workshop made for a growing market in the United States. A heavy, fully handwrought bowl of the first design period is sought by collectors who follow Spratling's table silver as closely as his jewelry.