Cancer Zodiac Pendant

A zodiac worked entirely in silver rather than the enamel for which Margot de Taxco is best remembered, this Cancer pendant shows the other side of her shop: disciplined relief modeling on a plain sterling ground. The maker opened her own establishment in 1947, after the early Los Castillo years, and while the enamel production that began in 1955 has come to define her reputation, sterling designs such as this one carried the same graphic sensibility into a quieter material.

The pendant takes the form of a round disc, its imagery raised in low repoussé against a smooth field: the emblem of Cancer, the crab, set with a star and celestial devices and finished with an integral loop at the top for suspension. The astrological subject suits Margot's design instinct, a single legible motif organized within a strict circular frame, the relief allowed to read against undecorated metal rather than competing with surface ornament.

Margot de Taxco sterling of this period carries stamped marks recording the workshop name, the Mexican sterling standard, and a design number within her numbered system, as documented in Hougart's survey of Mexican silver marks. Executed in silver rather than enamel, the piece belongs to the broader run of her jewelry and reflects the range a Taxco design house of her stature maintained alongside its signature enamelwork.