Box with Double Serpents of Tortoise Shell and Silver

A box whose hinged lid carries double serpents rendered in tortoise shell and silver is one of Spratling's clearest demonstrations of design through material contrast. Morrill describes exactly this treatment: the serpents flattened and stylized into pure pattern, an allusion to Mexico's past in which the emphasis is on the richness and textural contrast in the interplay of silver with tortoiseshell rather than on the mythic force of Quetzalcoatl (Morrill, p. 73).

The motif crossed his output, appearing on both silver and rosewood box lids and in pendants and necklaces, so this lid belongs to a recognized family of double-serpent designs from his Second Period.

The box is unusually well documented, recorded in both Cederwall and Riney editions of Spratling Silver, in Morrill and Berk's Mexican Silver, in Morrill's Maestros de Plata, and in Goddard's field guide. With tortoise shell intact and an early mark, it is a fully traceable example of a motif central to Spratling's design thinking.