Hinged Book Picture Frame

A hinged silver picture frame built to hold two photographs and shaped like a book, with notched corners, this is one of Spratling's First Design Period domestic objects, the silversmith's eye turned to the desk and the side table. The book form lets the two halves close on each other like covers.

Decorative and functional silver for the home was a real part of the early workshop's output. Alongside jewelry, Spratling's shop produced frames and similar objects, and his workshop also turned out picture and mirror frames in tin (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994, p. 36). A hinged double frame in silver belongs to that broader program of well-made household pieces.

The notched corners are a small architectural touch from a maker trained as an architect, giving the plain silver field a defined edge. The hinge makes the frame a freestanding, self-supporting object rather than a flat plate.

Frames and tabletop pieces are less commonly seen than Spratling's jewelry, so a First Period silver book frame is a useful example of how his design sense extended beyond the body into the home.