Azur Malachite Letter Opener

Three triangles of azur malachite set into a silver blade, the field worked with incised wavy lines, give this letter opener the quiet geometric play that defines Spratling's later table objects. The triangular insets and the rippling engraved ground are handled as abstraction rather than decoration, a restraint Morrill traces in part to the French silversmith Jean Puiforcat, whose combining of silver with contrasting materials and geometric approach to form Spratling shared (Morrill, p. 224).

Malachite was among the semi-precious materials Spratling favored, and it figured in the 200 models he prepared for the Alaska project, where blue malachite appeared in his "North Star" variations (Morrill, p. 66). Here the green-blue stone is the only color against the silver.

Spratling's catalogues show this opener as a production item only in 1956-1957, a brief window that limits how many were made.

The design is recorded in Penny C. Morrill's William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance: Maestros de Plata and in Phyllis M. Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide, the standard references for authenticating his work.