Stepped Geometric Necklace, Model No. 79

Built from a row of articulated sterling panels, this collar steps and terraces like a piece of architecture. Each plate is cut into the rising and falling profile of a stepped fret and worked with diamonds, chevrons, and parallel lines struck by hand, so the ornament reads as light and shadow across plain silver rather than as applied decoration.

The design reflects how Ana Núñez Brilanti worked at the Victoria taller, drawing on Mexican history and the natural world and giving a personal interpretation to elements from pre-Columbian clay stamps, manuscripts, and architectural detail (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994). The stepped and terraced forms here answer directly to that architectural source, and the incised lines and punched patterns are the piercing-and-stamping technique that characterized Victoria's silver jewelry.

The Victoria workshop was best known for silver on copper, but Brilanti also worked extensively in pure silver, the line she carried on after mixed metals. The reverse is struck with the circular VICTORIA TAXCO mark, the model number 79, and STERLING.