Sugar Bowl Is Part of a Coffee and Tea Service

This sugar bowl belongs to a full coffee and tea service whose handle and lid finial are worked in finely carved rosewood, with silver wire banding used as a decorative element across the suite. The set carries an unusually well-documented design history that places it at a turning point in Spratling's career.

The wire banding ties the service to the device Spratling used across three decades of work, here deployed as the unifying detail of a coordinated suite. The carved-rosewood handle and finial add the wood-and-silver contrast that defined his hollowware.

The paper trail is specific. In July 1945 Spratling resigned from Spratling y Artesanos but agreed to supply roughly sixty-five new designs, and his October 1945 notes include instructions marked importante for the fabrication of this service, with drawings detailing the handle and banding.

Because Spratling y Artesanos declared bankruptcy and ceased operations in 1946, few of these services are believed to have been produced. The bowl is documented in the Centennial Edition of Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver, and surviving examples are among the scarcer pieces of his hollowware.