Quetzalcoatl Head Brooch

The head of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, fills this large silver brooch, a central image of Mexico's pre-Conquest iconography rendered as wearable silver.

Spratling worked the serpent not for its literal power but for its pattern, flattening and stylizing the form so the design read as shape rather than narrative (Morrill, p. 73). His pre-Columbian sources were always a "point of departure" rather than reproductions (Morrill, p. 39), and the serpent's head here is reduced to a strong, legible silver composition.

The design was also produced by Silson in a silver-plate material, bringing it to a wider American market. The brooch dates to the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, and is recorded in Spratling Silver in Taxco and in Morrill's William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance: Maestros de Plata.