Rosewood "Hand" Brooch with Silver Cuff

A brooch in the form of a hand, carved from rosewood and finished with a silver cuff, fastened by a two-pronged clip. The figural hand and the pairing of warm wood with silver are the distinguishing features, the rosewood reading against the metal cuff at the wrist. It is recorded in Goddard's field guide, "Spratling Silver: Recognizing a William Spratling Treasure."

The hand was a motif Spratling worked more than once, and his combining of silver with rosewood belongs to a broader practice of contrasting the reflective metal with warm natural materials, an approach Morrill connects to the French silversmith Puiforcat (Morrill, p. 224).

Figuring a wooden hand and capping it with a silver cuff turns the brooch into a small piece of carved sculpture as much as jewelry. Made at the Taller de Las Delicias Spratling founded in Taxco in 1931, it is a distinctive example of his use of mixed materials in the first design period.