Silson Clip Depicting a Bee

A silver-plated clip in the form of a bee, this piece sits at the intersection of Spratling's design and American mass production: it is a Silson version, patented by Silson on December 3, 1940, based on a bee design Spratling had created in 980 silver. The plated material and the patent date set it apart from his hand-wrought Taxco work.

The Silson arrangement is part of Spratling's documented history. The chronology of his career records the Silson patents being registered in the United States in 1940 to 1941, with Silson, Inc. of New York producing Spratling designs by 1941 (Morrill, p. 257). This bee clip is a direct product of that licensing.

Spratling was the American who, after arriving in 1926, became the central figure in reviving Taxco's silver industry and building the Taxco school. The Silson pieces show his designs reaching a wider American market in plated form, distinct from the higher-purity silver he worked in Taxco.

For a collector, a Silson bee clip is an unusual artifact of how Spratling's design vocabulary crossed into licensed American production at the start of the 1940s.