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Turquoise, amethyst, and coral come together in this silver pin, a compact statement of the Matl workshop's reliance on inlaid hardstone over plain metal. The taste for color set into worked silver grew from Matilde Poulat's post-Revolution turn toward a native Mexican aesthetic, away from European subjects and toward Pre-Conquest and pueblo sources (Morrill, p. 216).
The three stones reflect the bench skills the taller was known for. Ricardo Salas learned as a youth to carve coral, turquoise, and other stones for the firm's jewelry and figures, and a pin combining all three draws directly on that craft (Morrill, p. 216).
Pins of this type appear in our dataset with some regularity, more often than the scarcer one-off forms, making them an approachable representative of the Matl style.
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