Petroglyph Arrowhead Pendant Necklace

A silver arrowhead hangs at the center of this necklace, broad at the shoulders and tapering to a sharp point, with dark figures running down its hammered face like images cut into a rock wall. Antonio Pineda is not borrowing a decorative border here. He turns the entire pendant into an archaeological form, translating the silhouette of a projectile point and the language of petroglyphs into 970 silver.

The object depends on a disciplined contrast between bright metal, pecked surface, and shadowed figure. The hammered ground scatters light across the pendant, while the dark hunters and animals read as a vertical frieze inside the silver. The black velvet cord is part of the design, keeping competing metal away from the pendant and letting the arrowhead sit low and graphic against the body.

This archaeological current runs through Pineda's work. Morrill notes that his early formation gave him a lasting appreciation for ancient Mexican art and culture, and this necklace shows that inheritance in unusually direct form. Rather than soften the source into generic ornament, Pineda keeps the irregular outline and the reduced figural language intact, then gives them the scale and finish of modern Taxco silver.

The Christie's lot records the pendant at 9.2 x 7.3 cm on a 61.0 cm cord, marked ANTONIO TAXCO with the crown, HECHO EN MEXICO, SILVER, 970, eagle 17, and inventory code YY592. Conceived as the centerpiece of a small suite with matching earrings, it is strongest when read as a necklace in its own right: old imagery carried in a sober, modern hand.