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A silver box with a hinged scalloped "pillow" lid trades motif for form: the swelling, cushioned shape of the lid is the whole design, a soft volume worked in hard metal. It belongs to Spratling's First Design Period, when he was establishing the clean, sculptural object vocabulary that ran through his hollowware.
The scalloped edge ties it to the rope- and shell-edged forms he used on serving pieces of the same years. Worked entirely in silver, with no applied ornament, the box reads as an exercise in pure form. As a First Period piece, attribution rests on the early hallmark and the character of the handwork.
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