The Glyph Bracelet, Design No. 152

This bracelet emerged from the founding years of Los Castillo, at the beginning of one of the most important creative partnerships in modern Mexican silver. In 1939, Antonio, Jorge, Justo and Miguel Castillo left William Spratling’s Taller de las Delicias to establish their own workshop. Antonio’s wife, Margot van Voorhies Carr - later known as Margot de Taxco - became its lead designer. Spratling supported their independence but insisted that they develop their own designs. The result was an extraordinary period of experimentation in which Margot’s imagination was translated into silver by some of Taxco’s finest craftsmen.

Design No. 152, now known among collectors as the “Glyph” bracelet, is one of the legendary forms associated with those early years. Attributed to Margot, it transforms pre-Columbian-inspired masks, volutes and geometric emblems into a composition of her own invention. A monumental central figure projects outward from the wrist, flanked by articulated panels whose mirrored reliefs create a continuous sculptural frieze. The imagery feels ancient without reproducing any single archaeological object: it is a distinctly modern vision of Mexico’s ancestral past.

This is early Margot design and Los Castillo repoussé at its finest. The silver is worked in exceptionally deep relief, with broad raised surfaces set against darkened recesses that give the bracelet both visual clarity and architectural weight. At 142 grams, it possesses a physical presence commensurate with its design. Its scale, rarity and connection to the formative moment when Los Castillo first emerged from Spratling’s shadow have made the Glyph one of the most coveted bracelets of the Mexican silver renaissance, with almost mythic standing among serious collectors.