Silver Stem Cigarette Holder

An ebony cigarette holder rising from a silver base and stem, its ebony cup inset with silver circles and silver balls applied around the stem, this object brings the workshop's later vocabulary of dark hardwood, applied discs, and granulation to a smoking accessory. The silver dots on wood were a motif Spratling used extensively in this period, lending such objects a quality Morrill describes as both playful and sophisticated (Morrill, p. 73).

The piece dates to the Third Design Period of 1951 to 1967 and carries the standing of having been included in the 1965 traveling exhibition "The World of William Spratling," which toured United States museums with the workshop's jewelry and objects in silver (Morrill, p. 77).

Recorded in the Morrill and Berk survey and in La Platería Mexicana, the holder is a documented example of the workshop's late hardwood-and-silver objects, its exhibition history marking it as part of the recognized later repertoire.