Rose Brooch

A rose rendered entirely in silver, and rendered at full sculptural pitch: this brooch makes the case that the Taller Borda's floral work was not a sideline but a serious strand of its output. The blossom is built up in dimensional layers, its petals cupped and folding over one another around a swelling center, with a cluster of stamens emerging above the rim. A single bud rides at the flower's side, and the long, arcing stem carries two veined, serrated leaves before sweeping into a doubled terminal. Nothing here is flat or drawn; the design depends on petal shaping, surface, and shadow, so that the flower reads differently from every angle of wear.

The piece belongs to Héctor Aguilar's floral vocabulary of the early 1940s, the years when his workshop at the Taller Borda in Taxco was producing some of its most refined work. Marcy Burns records a rose brooch of this type from circa 1940 to 1945, executed in 940 silver with precise, sculpted silverwork and a strong rhythmic flower form. That elevated silver standard is itself a period signal: Morrill notes that Aguilar marks of the early 1940s pair the indented HA circle with the silver content, and that content above 940 points to early production.

Objects like this one broaden the picture of Aguilar's design range. He is often remembered for bold Pre-Columbian abstraction, the heavy geometric bracelets and architectural forms that defined much of the Taller Borda's identity. The rose brooch shows the same command of mass and modeling turned toward naturalism, the polished, high-relief petals catching light against the recessed shadows between them. It is the work of a shop confident enough to treat a flower not as ornament but as sculpture.