Ring with Tortoise Shell Diagonal Inserts

Diagonal inserts of tortoise shell set into silver give this ring a restless, angled rhythm that keeps a small object from reading as static. The shell carries the color and the silver supplies the structure, a pairing that belongs to Spratling's later years when he combined metal with organic materials rather than working in silver alone.

The diagonal placement is the design's signature, breaking the band's curve into a sequence of slants. It is the kind of geometric handling Morrill links to Spratling's affinity for the restrained, architectural silver of the French master Jean Puiforcat (Morrill, p. 224), translated here to the scale of a ring.

Tortoise-shell rings of this period surface only occasionally, and the inset construction marks it as workshop output rather than a later copy.