Double-Row Link Bracelet with Coral

A coral bracelet under the MATL mark shows the workshop's taste for saturated color worked into figural silver. Coral is among the stones the taller used most characteristically, set into the dense, folk-inflected designs that define the MATL idiom.

Matilde Poulat introduced the MATL mark in 1934, having trained as a painter at the San Carlos Academy before turning to silver, and her work joined the post-Revolutionary movement seeking a Mexican aesthetic in Pre-Conquest and folk traditions (Morrill, p. 216). She drew inspiration from the Mixtec gold jewelry discovered in 1932 at Monte Alban, and her motifs of doves, flowers, and tiny bells recall Mexican folk art (Morrill, p. 216).

The coral was carved and set with real skill; Ricardo Salas, Poulat's nephew and collaborator, perfected the carving of coral, turquoise, and other materials used in the jewelry (Morrill, p. 216).

MATL bracelets set with coral are encountered at market with some regularity and remain a strong example of the workshop's colored-stone work.