parrot silverplate stone inlay pitcher

A figural pitcher built around a parrot and finished with inset stone, this is the kind of decorative hollowware that earned Los Castillo its reputation beyond jewelry. Such larger forms came out of the orfebreria, the workshop arm given over to trays, services, and pitchers rather than small wares, and the parrot belongs to the parade of animals and birds the firm drew from the natural world (Morrill, p. 92).

The stone inlay sits against silverplate so that the worked metal carries the bird's form while the stone supplies color at chosen points. Los Castillo, founded in Taxco by Antonio Castillo in 1939, took the position that it would never simply repeat itself, refining detail rather than reissuing a design (Morrill, p. 91), which is part of why its zoomorphic vessels vary one to the next.

The form rewards attention as a piece of the workshop's decorative-object output rather than its more familiar jewelry.