Ribbon Banded Rosewood Brooch

Curled-under silver ribbon bands surround a faceted rosewood rectangle in this brooch, the bright furled metal framing the warm cut wood at its center.

The combination is Spratling's materials vocabulary in miniature: the contrast of silver against an exotic wood, the metal worked into ribbon forms that the workshop returned to repeatedly. The faceting of the rosewood gives the wood the same planar treatment usually reserved for stone.

The brooch is well documented, recorded both in Mexican Silver Jewelry: The American School 1930-1960 and in Penny C. Morrill's William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance: Maestros de Plata, a sign of its standing among collectors and scholars.