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The elongated links of this bracelet were called "scales" by Spratling himself, and the name fits: three rows of bronze and silver links, each topped with a narrow repousse rectangle, overlap like the scales of an animal. The mixing of bronze with silver gives the band two tones across its width.
The repousse rectangle on each link adds a worked, raised texture, and the side-by-side use of bronze and silver shows Spratling composing with the contrast of metals themselves rather than with stone. The result is a band with both color variation and surface relief.
That Spratling named the motif "scales" places it among the figural and natural references that run through his work, abstracted here into a structural pattern. As a first-period mixed-metal bracelet it belongs to his more inventive jewelry.
The bracelet is recorded in Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide.
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