Large Looped Amethyst Brooch

A large brooch fitted with loops so it can double as a necklace pendant, set with inset amethysts, this is a piece Spratling documented in his own working notes. In an entry of August 13, 1945 he specified its fabrication: thick, heavy silver in a brilliant finish, with stones of amethyst or lapis. That surviving design note, and the piece's appearance in Morrill and Berk's "Mexican Silver" and Goddard's field guide, make it unusually well anchored in the record.

The convertibility, brooch to necklace, reflects the practical inventiveness of Spratling's first-period jewelry, and the call for thick, heavy silver matches the substantial gauge he favored throughout. Amethyst was among the stones he returned to most often.

That preference for weighty, brilliantly finished silver was characteristic of the Taller de Las Delicias he founded in Taxco in 1931, where designs were hand-wrought to his specification.

With its documented design note and its place in two references, this ranks among the better-recorded of Spratling's first-period pieces.