Tulip Amethyst Cuff

The two cast silver hands at the crown of this heavy cuff each cradle a carved amethyst crystal, the stone presenting as a tulip blossom above a scrollwork base. The design stands apart from the Aztec-inspired iconography that characterized most of William Spratling's Taller de las Delicias work. As Penny C. Morrill notes in Silver Masters of Mexico (1996), the hand-holding-flower series the workshop began producing in the late 1930s read as more closely aligned with a colonial-period sensibility than with Spratling's Pre-Columbian vocabulary — she suggests the motif may reflect a collaboration with Valentín Vidaurreta, a skilled designer then moving between Taxco workshops, whose feeling for colonial forms was distinct from Spratling's usual sources.

The cuff is worked in 980 silver, stamped WS, 980, and TAXCO — hallmarks consistent with the First Design Period (1931–1946). The two large rough amethysts dominate the face; smaller round stone cabochons set in circular bezels on each shoulder carry the violet tone around the band. A ribbed lower section provides the structural base for what is, by any measure, a notably substantial piece.

The design circulated widely enough to be offered through the Montgomery Ward mail-order catalogue in 1943 at $45.95, at the time among the higher prices asked for a bracelet in that line. Morrill and Berk document in Mexican Silver (1994) that Spratling's company moved over a million pesos' worth of jewelry through Montgomery Ward during the wartime period, when U.S. restrictions on domestic silver production directed American buyers toward Mexican imports. Earrings and a brooch were produced in the same hand-and-flower motif, making this cuff part of a coordinated suite.

The choice of carved amethyst gives the cuff an aliveness and immediacy characteristic of Spratling's early-period approach to design.