Amethyst and Silver Geometric Brooch

A bright silver blade tapers to a point and then splits at the base into two narrow tails, while down its raised spine run five amethyst cabochons, graduated largest to smallest and each pinned between small silver beads. The clean flanking planes read half stylized leaf, half pure modern shape, spare and architectural where most Taxco silver of the period ran to flowers and figures.

The discipline is in the arrangement. A single file of purple stones holds the center, and the polished silver to either side is left almost entirely plain, so the eye travels the line of cabochons and the forked silhouette rather than any applied ornament. The graduation of the stones gives the column a direction, drawing the look down toward the split tails.

The brooch carries the FD mark of Fred Davis, struck SILVER MEXICO with the eagle-22 assay. Davis ran the silver counter at Sanborn's in Mexico City, where from the late 1920s he was the first to grasp what North American visitors wanted and had the work made by independent silversmiths and designers, among them Valentín Vidaurreta, whose hand Morrill traces through much of the FD output. The amethyst, a Mexican stone, is set as a smooth cabochon that catches the light against the bright metal.

Most of the jewelry issued under the FD mark leaned floral; this geometry sits at the modern end of Davis's range, a design that trusts proportion and a single line of stone to carry it.