Tortoise Shell Fish Brooch

A fish whose body is cut from tortoise shell and riveted to a silver backing, the silver rivets left visible so that the fasteners become part of the design. That honest, structural detailing is the hallmark of the piece, and the model was popular enough to be widely copied by other designers. Spratling's own drawing of the design survives in the "William Spratling Folio of Drawings," and the brooch is recorded in Morrill and Berk's "Mexican Silver."

The catalog record tracks its commercial life: a wholesale price of $2 in 1958-59, rising to $2.40 by 1967. The same design was made in cufflinks and earrings, produced with abalone in place of tortoise shell, and has since been reissued in ebony.

The pairing of silver with tortoise shell, and the decision to let the rivets show, reflect Spratling's practice of building a design openly from its materials rather than concealing its construction.

With a surviving Spratling drawing, catalog pricing, and a place in two references, the tortoise-shell fish is among the better-documented and more collectible of his figural pins, the early shell versions preferred over the abalone and ebony variants.