turquoise amethyst cross

Standing altar crosses occupy a distinct register in the Matl taller's devotional output, deploying the workshop's full command of repoussé and multi-stone setting on a form drawn from the sacred metalwork of colonial New Spain. Morrill records that Poulat's Taxco workshop produced a substantial body of distinct religious pieces alongside its thousands of jewelry types.

The cross rises from a circular silver pedestal finished with a scalloped bead border and rope-twist wire band. A turned orb at the base of the stem supports symmetrical scroll volutes that bracket the transition into the cross arms — a structural register that echoes colonial altar-silver joinery. Across the face, interlaced repoussé scroll loops and C-curves form a dense baroque matrix, each open bay cradling a bezeled stone: round and teardrop-form turquoise cabochons concentrate at the center of the crossing and at the arm terminals, while cushion-cut amethysts punctuate the stem and arm ends in a deep violet counterweight. The combined palette is polychrome and ceremonially vivid, recalling the altarpiece and retablo tradition of New Spain.

Poulat had studied painting at Mexico City's San Carlos Academy before turning exclusively to silver, and Morrill records that she found her formative design reference in the Mixtec gold jewelry uncovered at Monte Alban in 1932 and in the subjects of Mexican folk art — a double inheritance that oriented the taller toward ornamental richness and Pre-Columbian chromatic density. Ricardo Salas, her nephew and longtime collaborator, specifically mastered the carving of turquoise and other stones used in the taller's jewelry and sacred figures; the precision of the stone placement on a piece like this one reflects that cultivated lapidary skill.