Salsa Ladle

A small ladle with a gracefully curved rosewood handle, which Spratling called a salsa ladle, shows how completely he reimagined the Mexican table in silver. Pairing a silver bowl with a warm wooden handle was a signature of his holloware, the wood chosen for the way its color and density set off the metal.

That combining of silver with rosewood is exactly the device Morrill links to Spratling's affinity for Puiforcat, whose silver was finished with rosewood and other materials at the handles and finials (Morrill, p. 224). The ladle is recorded in the 1943 Montgomery Ward Christmas Book, placing it among the Spratling pieces the catalogue carried in the mid-1940s (Morrill, p. 53).

Specialized serving pieces like a salsa ladle survive less often than common flatware, and the curved rosewood handle is the detail that marks it as Spratling's own.

Museum of Fine Arts, BostonBoston, United States

Ladle, about 1945

Accession 2000.789. Official museum record Photo: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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