Matchstick Necklace with Obsidian Tips

This 1953 necklace turns a single idea into pure form: a fan of elongated silver elements, each tipped in black obsidian, radiating outward into a dramatic curved silhouette across the chest. It is sculpture meant to be worn, the kind of bold modernist statement typical of Pineda's postwar Taxco work.

The radiating arrangement gives the piece its drama. The matchstick-like silver stems gather and connect at the apex where the clasp sits, then fan out so the obsidian tips read as a row of dark points against the body. The contrast of bright silver against the deep black of the obsidian, a volcanic stone with long roots in Mexican craft, sharpens the geometry.

The necklace is recorded in Gobi Stromberg's Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda (2008), p. 120, plate 141a. It bears the Antonio Crown mark with the 970 standard and Hecho en Mexico, the hallmarks that attribute it to Pineda's workshop.