Cuff with Concave Channel and Amethyst Cones

Antonio Pineda's reputation as the most architecturally minded of the Taxco modernists rests on cuffs like this one, where silver is treated not as a backdrop for stones but as a sculptural channel that organizes them. Working from his Taxco workshop in the postwar decades, Pineda pushed the medium toward a clean, constructed geometry, and this bracelet shows that instinct in concentrated form.

The cuff is built around a prominent concave channel that runs the length of the band, lined with rectangular compartments that hold pointed amethyst cones. The cones sit in a strict linear sequence within the channel, so the eye reads both the sculptural hollow of the metal and the orderly cadence of the purple stones against it. Form and setting are conceived together rather than as ornament added to a blank.

The piece carries Pineda's Antonio crown mark with the 970 silver standard, Hecho en Mexico, and an eagle assay stamp. It is recorded in Gobi Stromberg's Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda (2008), p. 149, plate 195.

Work of this quality from Pineda's studio comes to market only occasionally, and the combination of a documented reference and the disciplined channel construction makes this a strong example of his amethyst cuffs.

The Newark Museum of ArtNewark, United StatesOn view

Bracelet, ca. 1948-1965

Accession 2017.67.25. Official museum record Photo: The Newark Museum of Art.

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