Brooch of Sun and Moon

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Object record

Catalogue no.: MoMS-000325
Form: Brooch
Date: First Design Period: 1931 - 1946
Materials: Silver, Copper
Dimensions: 3 1/2" x 2"

Curatorial note

A brooch pairing the sun and the moon in silver and copper sets two celestial bodies side by side and uses the two metals to tell them apart, the warm copper and bright silver distinguishing the disks. The sun-and-moon pairing draws on the cosmological imagery of Mexico's past, the kind of pre-Columbian source Spratling built his early work around (Morrill, pdf p. 39).

The motif was popular enough to be carried across forms: it was also produced as earrings, so the brooch headed a small matched set. It is a First Design Period design.

The brooch is recorded in Morrill and Berk's Mexican Silver, in Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver, in Mexican Silver Jewelry: The American School 1930-1960, and in Goddard's field guide. It has been reissued, so a period original is identified by its early mark against the later production.