Sagittarius Zodiac Pendant

A zodiac series in worked sterling shows a side of Margot de Taxco often eclipsed by the enamels for which she is remembered. Here the archer of Sagittarius is struck in low relief within a small silver disc, a star set above the drawn bow, the whole composed to read clearly at the scale of a pendant. It is a reminder that the shop she opened in 1947, before the enamel production began in 1955, built its language first in metal.

The design fills the circular field edge to edge, the figure modeled in shallow relief against a plain ground so the archer and star carry the composition without added color. A simple ring bail lets the disc hang and turn freely. The astrological subject suited a maker who worked in numbered series, each sign realized as a variation on a single format so that the twelve could be issued and worn as a set or singly.

Margot van Voorhies came to Taxco through Los Castillo, the enterprise she helped launch with Antonio Castillo before establishing Margot de Taxco under her own name. Her workshop's sterling pieces carry the familiar "Margot de Taxco" marks recorded in the standard hallmark references, and this pendant belongs to that body of small, cleanly resolved silver on which her later reputation was built.