Bowl with Pre-Columbian Mask, Model No. 109

This bowl is one of Victoria's most famous designs, published in Morrill and Berk's Mexican Silver. Its importance depends in part on precision: this is silver overlay on copper from Victoria's mixed-metals line, not true metales casados in the later Los Castillo sense. The silver pre-Columbian mask is applied over the shallow copper vessel, making the contrast between pale silver and warm copper the central design idea.

The mask is frontal and bilaterally balanced, with scroll terminals, stepped forms, and a pendant element below the chin. Against the hammered copper field, the silver overlay reads almost graphically, turning the bowl into a compact study in surface, contrast, and Taxco's mid-century fascination with pre-Columbian forms.

That distinction matters because true metales casados is a different construction: pieces of contrasting metal are cut and fitted like a jigsaw and joined with little or no solder, a Taxco technique credited in the sources to Jorge "Chato" Castillo at Los Castillo. Brilanti's contribution was not that exact method, but a separate silver-and-copper language developed after her encounter with a smoked-silver object from the Monte Albán treasures in Oaxaca.

The mark visible on the submitted hallmark photograph reads VICTORIA / MEXICO above METALES and the model number 109. Here, METALES names the workshop line, not a guarantee that the object is metales casados. The mark, object type, and photographed construction support the catalog attribution to Ana Núñez Brilanti / Victoria de Taxco, circa 1950s to early 1960s.