Obsidian Choker Collar

This Obsidian Choker Collar is one of the clearest demonstrations of Ledesma’s ability to transform jewelry into a unified sculptural composition. Rather than treating the obsidian as a stone placed within a conventional setting, he allows the polished black mass and the silver collar to merge into a single continuous form. The two broad silver planes cross and narrow toward the center, framing the asymmetrical obsidian element while simultaneously appearing to pass behind and through it. Worn high at the base of the neck, the piece reads less as a necklace than as a compact modernist sculpture engineered for the body.

This integration of stone and metal is central to Ledesma’s mature work. Contemporary scholarship notes that he selected stones not merely for decoration but for their capacity to contribute color, mass, pattern, and line; silver and stone were often brought onto the same visual plane rather than separated into mount and setting. In a closely related published obsidian design, the stone’s edge is described as merging into the silver in a smooth, continuous surface, with “slow-moving and elegant” lines—language that applies precisely to this collar. The deep, reflective black of the obsidian gives the necklace a distinctly Mexican material identity, while its abstraction and controlled asymmetry place it firmly within the international language of postwar modernism.

The collar also reflects Ledesma’s unusual standing within the Taxco School. Trained in the orbit of William Spratling, he later worked at Los Castillo before establishing his independent workshop around 1950. His technical authority was such that Spratling selected him as one of only three master silversmiths to train Alaskan Native craftsmen in Taxco in 1949. His own shop quickly became known for exceptional execution, and period sources identified him among Taxco’s principal creative producers. The apparent simplicity of this necklace conceals demanding construction: the sweeping collar must retain tension and balance around the neck, the crossing silver elements must align precisely, and the large obsidian form must be integrated without disrupting either comfort or visual flow.

Large, intact Ledesma collars of this ambition are rare. They required more material, greater lapidary skill, and considerably more engineering than the brooches, earrings, and bracelets that constitute most surviving examples of his work. Their scale also made them less commercially adaptable and therefore unlikely to have been produced in significant numbers. This example is especially desirable because it condenses the defining attributes of Ledesma’s work into one object: technical precision, sculptural control, the inseparability of silver and stone, and an unmistakable understanding of jewelry as wearable art. Within the history of Mexican modernist silver, it should be regarded as a major Ledesma design and a museum-caliber expression of the Taxco School at its most sophisticated.