Banded Rosewood Salad Servers

Rosewood salad servers banded with decorated silver at the ends, this pair belongs to the workshop's pairing of native hardwood with silver for the table. The warm grain of the wood is given the working surface; the silver is reserved for the bands that finish each handle.

The combination of Mexican hardwoods with silver was a hallmark of Spratling's First Design Period tableware, and such servers were among the objects the workshop made in quantity for domestic use. This pair was offered in the Montgomery Ward Christmas Book of 1943, the period when Spratling silver reached a national American market through the Ward catalogues (Morrill, p. 53).

Recorded in that 1943 catalogue, the servers are a documented example of the affordable, well-made household silver that broadened the workshop's reach during the war years.