Four Teardrop Earrings

Four teardrop shapes hang from a rope-encircled ball in these silver earrings, the descending drops giving them motion and length. The composition, a central element shedding pendant forms, is a compact piece of first-period design, the twisted rope detail framing the ball at the top.

The rope motif had deep roots in Spratling's early vocabulary; he drew cord and twist designs from sources like saddle ornaments in his first years at the workshop, treating them as a point of departure for new work (Morrill, pdf p. 39). Here that idiom is turned to a delicate, wearable form.

Made at the Taller de Las Delicias Spratling founded in Taxco in 1931, the earrings carry the hand-wrought quality of that production. With no recorded reference, they stand on the merit of the design itself.