Eye Earrings

Spratling himself described these as "eye" earrings, the inset of dark obsidian reading as a pupil against the silver surround. The naming ties the design to the abstracted figural imagery he drew from Mexican sources, and the use of obsidian, the native black volcanic glass, grounds the pair in local material.

The earrings belong to the first design period, 1931-1946, when Spratling turned motifs and materials of Mexico into modern wearable form. The single obsidian inset is the whole composition, abstraction reduced to one stone and its silver eye.

Figural earrings of this kind survive in limited numbers.