Bird-Handled Footed Bowl with Stone Mosaic

Stone inlay set into a object, this is among the more frequently seen forms of Los Castillo's decorative tableware, the stone-and-metal work that ran alongside the firm's jewelry.

The inlaid stone marks the object with color while the worked silverplate carries the form. Antonio Castillo founded the Taxco workshop in 1939, and the firm built its reputation on improving its designs rather than repeating them (Morrill, p. 91); coming up more often than the rarer figural objects, this plain inlay form gives a clear view of the basic stone-and-metal technique.

It stands as a representative example of the workshop's everyday inlaid tableware, the ground on which its more elaborate figural pieces were built.