Libra Zodiac Pendant with Green Enamel, Design No. 5226

A single disc carries the whole apparatus of a constellation: the Libra glyph set above a suspended balance, worked in bright silver against a densely speckled green enamel ground. The zodiac was a subject Margot van Voorhies returned to as a coordinated program, and this pendant shows how she compressed an astrological sign into one legible enameled emblem, the sort of design thinking that carried her enamel line well beyond decorative pattern into iconography.

The enamel on silver for which Margot de Taxco is principally known began in her shop in 1955, and this pendant belongs to that mature body of work, its recessed silver cells holding the mineral-flecked green field within a plain raised rim. Margot opened her own taller in 1947 after her years shaping early designs for Los Castillo, and the disciplined balance here, a centered figural motif framed by clean border and a simple suspension loop, reflects the enamel-on-silver practice that defined her reputation, documented in Hougart's account of the workshop.

The form is a compact circular pendant, the Libra scales and glyph reserved in silver so the enamel reads as the ground rather than the ornament, a reversal that gives the small object its graphic clarity.