Copper Banded Link Bracelet

Silver squares crossed by copper diagonal bands and separated by rows of three balls, this bracelet sets a strict geometric grid against the warm line of the copper, the mixed metals doing the ornamental work. A variant was made with silver diagonals rather than copper, and the silver-banded version was offered in the Montgomery Ward Christmas Book of 1943.

The piece dates to the First Design Period and belongs to the workshop's vocabulary of repeated geometric units and applied balls. Its distribution through the Ward catalogues placed it before a national American audience during the years Spratling silver was sold by the mail-order house (Morrill, p. 53).

It is recorded in the Cederwall and Riney Spratling Silver volume, in the Morrill and Berk survey, and in the period Montgomery Ward catalogues. The well-documented catalogue history and the survival of both the copper and silver variants make it a useful reference point among the workshop's First Period bracelets.