Silson Mirrored Silver Ball Brooch

This brooch renders a single silver ball mirrored against itself, framed by incised lines that resolve into swirls, and it carries the Silson mark rather than Spratling's own. That mark places it precisely: Silson, Inc. of New York was producing Spratling designs from 1941, after the relevant patents were registered in the United States in 1940-41 (Morrill, p. 257). The Silson line let an American audience buy a Spratling design in silver plate rather than handwrought Mexican silver.

The design itself is pure early Spratling, the hemispherical ball with incised line work, executed here in plate for a different market. The swirling terminals soften the geometry of the central form.

For collectors, the Silson pieces are a distinct and well-defined corner of the Spratling story, the licensed American counterpart to the Taxco production.