Pisces Zodiac Pendant

A zodiac told in inlay rather than relief, this pendant sets the two fish of Pisces as clean silver lines swimming across a mottled green and blue stone field, with the sign's linked glyph resting below. The reduction of an astrological subject to a few sure strokes, framed by a plain silver bezel and topped by a simple hinged bail, shows Los Castillo working in the mosaic idiom that ran alongside the workshop's better known married metals, the stone set flush into silver so that color and line read as one surface.

The Los Castillo shop, founded in Taxco by Antonio Castillo and his brothers after Antonio's early years in the Spratling orbit, built much of its reputation on inlay and metal marquetry, and the house name is bound up in the literature with the Mosaico Azteca work recorded in Hougart's hallmark reference. This pendant belongs to that inlay tradition, where the drama comes not from heavy repoussé but from the interplay of a hard stone ground and thin metal drawing.

Executed in sterling silver, the piece carries the restrained construction typical of the workshop's smaller ornaments: an oval plate, a raised rim, and a discreet loop that lets the design stay the focus. Read together, the stylized fish and the Pisces glyph make the subject legible at a glance, a compact example of how Los Castillo translated a familiar motif into the language of Taxco silver and stone.