Teardrop Necklace

Held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.2014.197), this sterling necklace built on a teardrop form and set with amethyst entered a public collection as a representative piece of Antonio Pineda's design, the rounded silver drops giving it a soft, modeled rhythm. Its place at LACMA fixes its standing in the museum record of his work.

The teardrop motif suits Pineda's sculptural sense. He apprenticed under William Spratling at Las Delicias, learning from the master smiths Mondragon and Navarrete (Stromberg, p. 29), and built a taller in which he conceived designs while master smiths executed them in silver (Stromberg, p. 81). A teardrop necklace with amethyst is that instinct worn at the throat.

Dated around 1953, it falls in the period when Pineda was, in Stromberg's framing, a key figure in the innovative silver design coming out of Taxco (p. 15). For a collector, a museum-held teardrop necklace in silver and amethyst is Pineda's modeling instinct and colored stone in a documented form.

Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles, California

Teardrop Necklace, circa 1953

Accession M.2014.197. Official museum record Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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