Crossing-Arch Amethyst and Silver Bracelet

Pairs of slender silver arches cross at the wrist like a row of drawn bows, and from each crossing hangs a pear-shaped amethyst cabochon, set point-down so the violet stones swing in an unbroken ring around the band. The motif is pure structure, the bones of the design doing the work that ornament usually does, and a characteristic turn from Antonio Pineda, whose silver leaned toward the sculptural and architectural rather than the floral.

Worked as an articulated cuff, the bracelet is built from repeating crossed-arch links, each one cradling its single stone and joined to the next by small handmade chain links, with a fine safety chain at the clasp. The amethysts sit at close interval, giving the band a dense, full rhythm; the impact comes from the repeat and the swing of the drops rather than from any applied detail.

It is struck in 970 silver, the higher standard Pineda preferred over ordinary sterling, and carries his Antonio-Taxco crown mark. The amethyst, a violet quartz, is cut as smooth pear cabochons that catch the light along their curve, the cool metal framing the warmth of the stone.

The crossing-arch was conceived as a design across a set, the same wishbone-and-drop unit adapted from the open line of a necklace to the closed circle of the wrist. It is Pineda treating a bracelet as a problem of interval and repetition, line and lavender stone, and little else.