This is about a man and his sauceboat.
Chicago native Dan Taglia was studying photography in graduate school at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
One of the requirements was that he declare a minor, so he chose metalsmithing. It was 1982, and a professor urged Taglia to design something for the Sterling Silver Design competition, which was put on by the Sterling Silversmiths Guild of America.
He made a sauceboat.
"I didn't want to make an abstract piece of something, and there are enough spoons in the world," he says from Eureka Springs, where he moved with his wife, Jerralyn, about 18 months ago. "I was fascinated by sauceboats, but I only knew them as gravy boats. I thought, oh, I could be creative with this."
Taglia spent two semesters working on the project.
"It's one solid piece," he says. "The bowl becomes the handle, which spreads over the spout and becomes the legs."
He sent it to the contest and, on a whim, included a price tag of $500. He was, after all, a broke, 30-year-old college student. He didn't count on it actually selling, or on the attachment he'd formed to his creation.
The sauceboat won an honorable mention, and Taglia was given $100, along with $61 for the silver he used in the piece.
It was displayed with other contest winners at the Lever House, a skyscraper on Park Avenue in New York City, and it found a buyer -- Raymond Drakoff, a successful New York chemist and art collector. Taglia got the sauceboat back briefly so it could be displayed in his graduate exhibition, then reluctantly returned it to its new owner.
Taglia graduated, went to work and moved around, living in Illinois, San Diego and then Texas, eventually retiring after working as a senior photographer for Conoco-Phillips in Houston. Over the years he would write to Drakoff, asking to buy the sauceboat back. Drakoff would kindly refuse, but always encouraged him to keep in touch.
Taglia's final offer was $1,800 in 2013, and Drakoff again declined. It was the last time the two would correspond. Drakoff died in 2017.
On Sept. 22, 2020, Drakoff's cousin tracked Taglia down and left a voicemail. Drakoff had sold his collection, Taglia says, but kept the sauceboat and Taglia's letters. His estate wanted to return the sauceboat to him as "Raymond's last gift."
A few days later the sauceboat arrived, almost 40 years after Taglia had last seen it, and in pristine condition.
"I was jumping up and down and thinking, this isn't real," Taglia says.
It sits in a display case near the front door of his home. And no, it is not for sale.
"I wouldn't be able to sleep if I sold it," he laughs.
See Taglia's silver sauceboat at arkansasonline.com/66trails/.
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