Rosewood Ring with Applied Silver Rectangular Plaque

A rosewood ring carrying an applied silver rectangular plaque, this small piece is notable for its history as much as its form: it is one of the very few Spratling designs made both in the 1940s and again in his later period, after he reintroduced it in the 1950s. The pairing of warm rosewood with a clean silver panel is the wood-and-silver idiom that became central to Taxco modernism, stated here at ring scale.

From the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, the ring's reach is documented in an unexpected place: it appears in Montgomery Ward's 1943 Christmas Book and the Spring 1944 Montgomery Ward catalog, evidence of how Spratling's designs entered the American mass-market channel during the war years.

Worked in silver and rosewood, the ring's long production life across two periods is its distinguishing trait. The condition of the wood, secure seating of the silver plaque, and the period of manufacture are what a collector weighs.