Round Cabochon Amethyst Earrings

A round cabochon amethyst, set in silver, is the whole of each earring: the violet Mexican stone is presented plainly, the metal serving only to hold and frame it. The directness is the point, the local stone given pride of place without competing ornament.

The design reached a wide audience. Per the existing record it appears in the 1942 to 1945 Spratling catalogs and is pictured in the Fall 1944 Montgomery Ward catalog at $11.75, evidence of the national retail distribution that carried Spratling's silver to American buyers during the war years. That commercial reach is part of the piece's significance.

The earrings are recorded in Montgomery Ward's Fall 1944 catalog. Amethyst cabochon earrings with documented catalog-retail history are collected as examples of the workshop's wartime market.