Azur Malachite Circle Brooch

A circular silver brooch set with triangles of azur malachite, each finished with a bead at its tip, this brooch belongs to a documented and historically pointed moment: it was among the last designs Spratling created for Spratling y Artesanos, one of sixty he agreed to provide the company after his resignation in July 1945. In his notes to the firm's general manager he specified that this design was to take a "brilliant" finish, while a similar horizontal brooch was to be "matte" surviving instructions that tie the piece directly to his hand.

The departure from Spratling y Artesanos came at a fraught time in the company's history; Morrill records the breakdown between the firm and Montgomery Ward in 1945 over silver content and the use of the marks (Morrill, p. 53). A design from the set of sixty Spratling provided after stepping away carries that documented transitional weight.

Recorded in the Morrill and Berk survey, in Morrill's Maestros de Plata study, and in Goddard's field guide, the brooch is a well-documented example of Spratling's late First Period work, its specified "brilliant" finish a precise marker drawn from his own notes.