Mermaid Brooch

A mermaid rendered in silver and azur malachite is Spratling at his most narrative, a figural brooch built around the blue-green stone. The stone is not an afterthought but the starting point, and Spratling's own working notes for the piece make that explicit.

In notes of August 1945 he directed that the stone be cut first and the silver adjusted to it, with a brilliant finish, a fitting of metal to material that runs through his work. That documented instruction makes this brooch an unusually well-attested object, recorded in Penny Morrill's William Spratling and the Mexican Silver Renaissance: Maestros de Plata.

Azur malachite was among the stones Spratling favored, and a figural mermaid is a more ambitious subject than the geometric forms that dominate his jewelry. Pieces backed by his own fabrication notes come to market rarely.