Modernist Hinged Bracelet with Amethyst and Niello

A round amethyst sits forward in this hinged bracelet, held in a silver frame that turns the stone into the center of a compact architectural composition. The design is marked Sigi, Tasco, with design number 250 and an illegible eagle stamp, placing it within Sigfrido Pineda’s mid-century Taxco production. The bracelet’s front measures 1 3/8 inches, a modest span, but the effect is concentrated rather than delicate: a dark oval of niello, a triangular open support, and a broad polished silver arm converge around the purple stone with unusual density.

The amethyst is especially important to the design because it is open at the back and convex on both sides. Light can enter and leave through the mounting, so the stone is not treated as a flat colored insert but as a rounded volume suspended within silver. Its purple depth is set against the blackened niello, which sharpens the bracelet’s asymmetry and gives the polished silver a stronger edge. The hinge allows the form to close around a small wrist of about 6 3/8 inches, while the front remains deliberately sculptural. Pineda organizes the bracelet around interlocking arcs and angular braces rather than applied ornament. The surface decoration is structural: niello marks one plane, silver frames another, and the amethyst gathers the movement of both.

The bracelet belongs to the period when Sigi Pineda’s independent language was taking shape after substantial workshop experience in Taxco. Morrill and Berk record that he worked at Margot de Taxco, where he oversaw the enamelers for four years before opening his own shop in the mid-1950s. Stromberg later described his jewelry as characteristic of “sleek, simple, abstract modernist shapes,” a phrase that fits this object’s reliance on clean contour and controlled mass. The bracelet does not depend on narrative motif or revival imagery. Its modernism lies in the way silver, stone, and blackened surface are made to function as interdependent volumes.

The marks reinforce that position within the Taxco School’s broader working culture. Hougart documents Sigi Pineda’s script mark and records several eagle numbers associated with his work, including 25, 34, 35, 36, 95, and 96. The illegible eagle stamp on this bracelet therefore supports, without narrowing, its placement within the post-1948 system of Mexican silver marking. Design number 250 is also consistent with Hougart’s observation that some Sigi Pineda pieces carry inventory or design numbers. In this example, the number matters less as a precise date than as evidence of an organized workshop practice, one capable of producing a bracelet that is intimate in scale but carefully resolved in construction, surface, and modernist form.