Design 5414 Necklace

Two interlocking scroll medallions, paired in exact mirror symmetry at the center of this necklace, represent one of the more seldom-encountered forms in Margot de Taxco's enamel line. The pairing of warm rust with jet black enamel across polished sterling silver gives it a chromatic directness that holds from across the room.

The center panels are the piece. Each is shaped as a continuous-band spiral, the two nesting against one another to read together as a single symmetrical focal element. Concentric arcs of alternating rust and black enamel follow the serpentine turns of each scroll, building a visual rhythm that registers as bold graphic at a distance and reveals layered intricacy at close range. The rectangular links of the chain extend the same palette outward, each carrying a narrow enamel stripe that draws chain and pendant into a single integrated object. As Morrill observes in Mexican Silver (1994), Margot found that "the patterns in Pre-Columbian motifs were compatible with the energetic lines of the international Art Deco style, and both approaches to style can be found in her jewelry"; the coiled continuous-band motif of the center panels realizes that synthesis in metal and color.

Margot established her own taller after leaving Los Castillo in the early post-war period, carrying forward the enamel-on-silver work that Morrill records as becoming "one of her major lines of jewelry." Her numbered design inventory permits examples to be identified and tracked across time.