Tea Bell

Ten silver balls ring this tea bell, set against an intricately turned wood handle topped with a ball, a small object that brought the workshop's silver into the American home. It is recorded in three references, including Morrill and Berk's Mexican Silver: 20th Century Handwrought Jewelry & Metalwork and Phyllis M. Goddard's Spratling Silver field guide, and was sold through Montgomery Ward in 1943 for $10.00 as a "tea bell."

The catalog listing matters: Morrill documents that Spratling silver was featured in the Montgomery Ward catalogues across 1943 to 1946 (Morrill, p. 257), the national channel that carried the workshop's designs far beyond Taxco. The turned wood handle paired with silver is the kind of material contrast Spratling favored in his table objects.

That a small bell was both a handwrought workshop object and a nationally cataloged retail item is part of its interest. Documented first-period holloware of this kind is collected as evidence of how Spratling silver reached the United States.

The Wolfsonian-FIUMiami Beach, United States

Bell, 1931-1945

Accession TD1991.77.4. Official museum record Photo: The Wolfsonian-FIU.

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