Oval Onyx Scrollwork Brooch

Onyx set into silver gives this MATL pin its dark contrast against the workshop's dense, baroque metalwork. The stone-and-silver pairing belongs to the polychrome tradition the taller built its name on.

The carving and setting of colored stones was a defining craft of the shop; Ricardo Salas, Poulat's nephew and collaborator, was noted for perfecting the cutting of coral, turquoise, and other materials used in the jewelry (Morrill, p. 216). The pin's ornamented surface carries the baroque repoussé idiom the workshop was known for (Morrill, p. 83).

Matilde Poulat introduced the "MATL" mark in 1934 as part of the post-Revolution embrace of Mexican folk and Pre-Conquest sources.