dove necklace

Across the front of a necklace, the Matl dove becomes the organizing image of the piece, the workshop's signature motif scaled up into a statement of folk-rooted ornament. Worked in silver in the shop's dense, baroque idiom, it reads immediately as the Matl hand.

Morrill names the dove, alongside flowers and tiny bells, as one of the recurring subjects at the heart of Matilde Poulat's design language, motifs she likens to the whimsical imagery of Mexican folk art (Morrill, p. 216). The choice was deliberate: Poulat's work belonged to the post-Revolution cultural moment, when Mexican artists turned from European subjects to Pre-Conquest and pueblo sources, with Poulat herself drawn to the Mixtec gold unearthed in 1932 at Monte Albán (Morrill, p. 216).

The "Matl" mark, introduced in 1934, draws on the Nahuatl atl, the Aztec word for water (Morrill, p. 216). Poulat won international notice in 1941, when she was invited to exhibit at the Pan American Union in Washington (Morrill, p. 216).

Dove necklaces are among the more sought Matl forms, the motif being the clearest expression of the workshop's identity.