Amethyst Hand Earrings

A silver hand, modeled in the round, holds a cabochon amethyst that dangles loose from the wrist: the figural conceit is what carries this pair, turning a small ornament into a piece of sculpture worn at the ear. The hand was a recurring device in Spratling's vocabulary, an emblem of the handwork that the Taxco revival was built on, and here it does double duty as both motif and mounting.

The amethyst is left as a smooth cabochon rather than faceted, the local stone presented for its color and weight in the manner Spratling preferred. Setting a Mexican semiprecious stone against hand-raised silver, and letting it hang free so it catches movement, is characteristic of the workshop he founded in Taxco in the 1930s, where native materials were given a deliberately modern, sculptural treatment.

Figural earrings of this kind survive in smaller numbers than his geometric production and come to market only occasionally.