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A single silver button can still carry a complete design idea, and this smaller one does so with a center bead surrounded by incised lines radiating outward. The raised bead and the engraved rays make a compact sunburst, the kind of small repeating unit Spratling produced as buttons, cuff links, and earrings alike.
The radiating incised line is a basic device in his vocabulary, used to give definition and movement to a small flat surface. Here it organizes the whole button around its central bead.
As a small silver fastening it belongs to the everyday accessories the workshop produced in volume, where a clear, simple motif had to read at a glance. Modest objects like this surface at auction only occasionally and usually as part of larger groupings.
Buttons, 1940
Accession M.2018.68.44.1-.2. Official museum record Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Verified against each institution's own collection records. All museum collections
Museum of Mexican Silver. “Small Incised Silver Button.” Catalog no. MoMS-000075. https://museumofmexicansilver.com/pieces/spratling-2208
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Swirled Silver Button
Silver
