Azur Malachite Loop Earrings

Inlaid azur-malachite set against a silver loop gives these earrings their color and their lineage: per the existing record the design reflects Spratling's Alaskan experience, tying it to the crafts program he undertook for Alaska at the end of the 1940s. That project drew on native materials, malachite among them, and produced variations on his "North Star" design (Morrill, p. 66); these earrings carry that northern episode back into the Taxco vocabulary.

The banded blue-green stone, inlaid flush rather than set as a cabochon, is presented against a clean silver loop, the contrast of worked metal and patterned stone doing the work. The inlay technique reflects the Taxco school's experimental use of stone with silver (Stromberg, p. 41).

The earrings are recorded in Phyllis M. Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. Azur-malachite jewelry tied to the Alaska work is an uncommon and well-storied part of the output, collected for that connection.