Kalo Shop Hand Wrought Pine Cone Decorated Arts & Crafts Sterling Silver Large Sauce Boat, Chicago, Illinois, c. 1920's

Most sterling arts & crafts items are undecorated and rely on their shapes and hammered surfaces for their beauty. This rare sauce boat incorporates the aforementioned qualities and adds unusual and lovely bold designs inspired by nature. Attached to an oval base is an oval body with curved fluting bordered around the top with applied thick silver molding.

Panels on both sides are chased with striking design of pine cones and needles emerging upwards from the base. This same decoration is incorporated into the handle along with an applied pine cone thumb-piece. The decoration on this sauce boat is unlike any other Kalo design we've seen.

The Kalo Shop is known for its hammered surfaces and creative, forward looking arts & crafts designs. It was started by Clara Barck Welles who was 'known for her fair employment practices and for giving opportunities to women to become metalsmiths'.(1)

These rare candlesticks are marked underneath 'STERLING/ HAND WROUGHT/ AT/ THE KALO SHOP/ S402'. They measure 12 inches high and are in excellent condition.

This extremely rare sauce boat is marked underneath 'STERLING/ HAND WROUGHT/ AT/ THE KALO SHOP/ 2'. It measures 9 inches across the handle and spout by 4.5 inches wide by 6 inches to the top of the pine cone. It weighs an impressive 16.15 troy ounces, retains its original ivory insulators, has never been engraved and is in excellent antique condition.

Endnote:

1. Sharon S. Darling, Chicago Metalsmiths, (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 1977), p. 48.