Provincial Silver Teapot

This Provincial pattern teapot, its body marked by six incised lines and fitted with a rosewood handle and finial, belongs to one of Spratling's most distinguished serving designs. The complete tea service in this pattern is held in the permanent collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the design was included in the 1965 traveling exhibit The World of William Spratling.

The six incised lines give the teapot its restrained, modern surface, while the rosewood handle and finial supply the wood-and-silver contrast that defined Spratling's hollowware. As the central piece of the Provincial service, it carries the design language the rest of the set echoes.

The pattern's standing is reflected in its record: the teapot was catalogued at $73.00 in 1958-59, rising to $107.60 by 1967, and the design was awarded a prize by the National Sindicate of Silver Manufacturers of Mexico. Spratling's drawing of a very similar teapot survives in the William Spratling Folio of Drawings, and the piece is documented in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver.

A museum-held, exhibited, and prize-winning design places this among the more historically weighted of Spratling's serving pieces, and original Provincial examples come to market only rarely.