Zig Zag Bracelet with Azur Malachite

Four bands of silver meeting in a V, with a center row of amethyst and white onyx cabochons, give this bracelet a strict geometry softened by stone. The banded construction sets up a rhythm that the alternating cabochons then color, structure and ornament resolved into one form.

Amethyst was among Spratling's favored stones from the start (Morrill, p. 12), and setting cabochons into hand-wrought banded silver is characteristic of his First Design Period (1931-1946) jewelry, when his vocabulary of worked metal and native stone was taking shape.

The bracelet is recorded in Penny Morrill's Maestros de Plata.