Boat Shaped Silver Bowl

A boat-shaped silver bowl with applied buttons along a pierced edge, framed in ebony, this is among Spratling's most celebrated pieces of later holloware, an object pared down to a single elegant outline. Spratling listed it in his inventory sheets as a "Bon-bon or gravy boat," and he received a design award for it, an unusual distinction within his body of work.

From the Third Design Period, 1951 to 1967, the bowl shows the silver-and-ebony pairing and the applied-button motif Morrill identifies as central to his work of this decade, where dots and circles lend the holloware a playful sophistication (Morrill, p. 73). It was included in "The World of William Spratling," the touring museum exhibition organized through the McNay Art Institute in 1965, whose inventory listed bowls and trays among the objects shown (Morrill, p. 77).

Worked in 980 silver under the joined "WS" mark (Morrill, p. 39), its catalog history is documented: $48 wholesale in the 1961 catalogue and $57.20 by 1967. It is recorded in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver and in Goddard's field guide.

The design has been reissued, so a period original, with its award-winning form, ebony frame, and exhibition record, is the meaningful example. An early mark and intact ebony are what a collector confirms.