Mayan Head Plaque

A mounted silver Mayan head set against a gray-blue center within a black wood frame, this plaque moves Spratling's lifelong engagement with pre-Columbian imagery off the body and onto the wall. The framed format presents the silver relief as a small sculpture, the colored ground throwing the metal forward.

The translation of an ancient Mexican source into accessible modern form is exactly the practice Stromberg identifies as central to Spratling's design method (p. 27). The plaque was carried into the 1965 traveling exhibition "The World of William Spratling," which toured the United States.

It is recorded in Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. Decorative plaques are an uncommon corner of the maker's output.