turquoise amethyst bead necklace

Turquoise and amethyst beads strung with silver give this Matl necklace its color and rhythm, the bead form offering a more linear, strung variant within the workshop's largely set-stone output. The piece reads as a study in the shop's two signature stones.

Colored-stone work was the taller's strength; Ricardo Salas, Poulat's nephew and collaborator, was noted for perfecting the carving of coral, turquoise, and other stones used in the jewelry (Morrill, p. 216). Turquoise and amethyst together became one of the most recognizable Matl combinations, and a beaded treatment shows them in a freer arrangement.

Matilde Poulat introduced the "Matl" mark in 1934 as part of the post-Revolution search for a Mexican aesthetic rooted in Pre-Conquest and pueblo sources (Morrill, p. 216). Bead necklaces in this palette appear with some regularity within the workshop's colored-stone production.