Double-Row Collar Necklace with Turquoise and Amethyst

Built as a collar, this turquoise- and amethyst-set silver necklace gives the MATL workshop's signature stone palette a substantial, close-fitting form around the neck. The collar shape carries the dense, baroque metalwork and colored stones as a single broad statement.

Colored-stone setting was the taller's defining craft; Ricardo Salas was singled out for perfecting the carving of turquoise, coral, and other stones used in the jewelry (Morrill, p. 216). The turquoise-and-amethyst pairing became one of the most recognizable MATL combinations, and a collar gives it a generous canvas.

Matilde Poulat introduced the "MATL" mark in 1934 as part of the post-Revolution search for a Mexican aesthetic rooted in Pre-Conquest and pueblo sources (Morrill, p. 216).