Raised Serpent Ashtray

A serpent rises in relief at the center of this ashtray, the same motif Spratling worked into a button during the same period, evidence of a design vocabulary that moved freely across object types. It belongs to the first design period of the Taller de las Delicias, the workshop Spratling founded in 1931.

The serpent is one of the pre-Columbian forms Spratling translated into modern silver, part of his broader practice of taking ancient Mexican motifs and rendering them in a style accessible to an American audience, as Stromberg describes (Stromberg, p. 27). Carrying the same image from a small button to a flat tabletop object shows how a single motif was scaled and reused across the workshop's range.

Decorative holloware from the early workshop is collected alongside Spratling's jewelry, and a serpent-centered ashtray tied to a known companion design is a desirable first-period example.