Flower Belt Buckle

Curling leaf forms and grape clusters spread across this belt buckle in an asymmetrical, organic composition, baroque scrollwork carried entirely by botanical reference. The buckle is a direct example of a form for which Valentin Vidaurreta was known: Morrill records that he produced elaborate and naturalistic flower belt ensembles with matching pins (Morrill, p. 114), and this asymmetrical floral buckle belongs squarely to that line of work.

Vidaurreta was a foundational and underrecognized figure in Taxco silver. He set up his first workshop in Mexico City in 1936, sold through Fred Davis at Sanborn's, and moved permanently to Taxco in 1941 (Morrill, p. 114). In 1936 he served as the tutor under whom Antonio Pineda learned silver design (Stromberg, p. 73), so his naturalistic vocabulary fed into a generation of makers who eclipsed his own fame.

The buckle's appeal lies in the freedom of its composition, leaf and grape worked in flowing relief rather than fixed symmetry, the silver coaxed into the swelling, curling lines that distinguished his hand.

Dating to the 1940s-1950s, the buckle is recorded in Gobi Stromberg's Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda (2008, p. 88, plate 71) and is marked Sterling.