Early Flying Eagle Brooch

This early flying eagle brooch draws directly on Pre-Hispanic models, the eagle a subject Spratling adapted from ancient Mexican sources. Morrill identifies the Las Delicias "powerful eagle with wings outspread flying downwards" as based on models from Monte Albán's Tomb 7 (Morrill, p. 38), the Mixtec treasure unearthed in 1932 that reshaped Mexican design.

Spratling translated such Pre-Columbian imagery into a style accessible to a contemporary audience, taking ancient motifs and rendering them in a modern idiom (Stromberg, p. 27). The flying eagle is one of the clearest instances of that translation, an ancient symbol carried into wearable silver.

As an early first-period eagle brooch it belongs to the Monte Albán-inspired group at the heart of Spratling's Pre-Columbian work, where the workshop's most ambitious figural designs originated, and early examples are seen only occasionally.