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A pair of earrings set with turquoise and amethyst brings the Matl workshop's signature stone palette to the smallest wearable scale, the two stones playing against the shop's dense, baroque silver. The pieces read at once as the workshop's hand.
Colored-stone setting was the taller's defining craft; Ricardo Salas, Poulat's nephew and collaborator, was noted for perfecting the carving of turquoise, coral, and other stones used in the jewelry (Morrill, p. 216). Turquoise and amethyst together became one of the most recognizable Matl combinations, here in intimate ornament for the ear.
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). Earrings in this palette appear with some regularity within the workshop's colored-stone output.
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