Cross Pendant with Turquoise and Amethyst

A pendant set with turquoise, amethyst, and coral concentrates the MATL workshop's full polychrome palette into a single wearable focus, the three stones framed by the shop's dense, baroque silverwork. The form distills the workshop's colored-stone idiom to one piece.

The carving and setting of colored stones was a defining MATL craft; Ricardo Salas, who trained beside his aunt, was noted for perfecting the cutting of coral, turquoise, and other materials used in the jewelry (Morrill, p. 216). A pendant carrying all three stones puts that strength at the center.

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). Pendants with this full palette appear with some regularity within the workshop's colored-stone output.