Copper Vase

A copper vase with the face of the sun stamped into each side below the handle shows the early Taxco workshop turning to base metal and a charged indigenous motif. The sun belonged to the Mexican imagery Spratling's designers drew on to give their work a national identity (Stromberg, p. 25), here pressed directly into the warm copper. A similar design was made in tin, so the form crossed more than one inexpensive metal.

The vase dates from the first design period, 1931 to 1946, the founding years of Spratling's Las Delicias taller in Taxco.

Work in copper and tin is a less familiar side of the Spratling output than the silver, and a vase that carries the sun face into base metal is a clear example of the workshop applying its Mexican design sources across whatever material was at hand.