Amethyst Brooch

A brooch set with amethyst concentrates Sigi Pineda's idiom into a small ornament, the purple stone, cabochon or faceted, held in a clean sterling mount with the modernist restraint that runs through his work. The piece reads as form and a single stone, nothing extra.

Sigi trained in the heart of the Taxco school. Morrill places him among the silversmiths in Margot van Voorhies Carr's workshop, where he oversaw the enamelers for four years before opening his own shop in the mid-1950s (Morrill, p. 168). An amethyst brooch comes from the independent work that followed.

That work moved, as Morrill notes, toward a die-cast line meant to be less costly to produce (p. 250). A Sigi brooch set with amethyst is a compact, characteristic statement of his modernist hand.