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An azur-malachite mosaic map of Acapulco, complete with a North Star, covers the lid of this box, turning a container into a small piece of geography rendered in native blue-green stone. It dates to the 1960s, within Spratling's third design period, and a companion box was made with a map of Zihuatanejo.
The North Star motif recurs in Spratling's work, where Morrill records it as a named design that he carried across pieces and materials (Morrill, p. 66). The same sculptural rosewood box form was also made plain, with an unadorned silver lid, showing how a strong vessel shape served as the base for both decorated and undecorated versions.
Mosaic-lidded boxes mapping specific Mexican places are among the more inventive objects of the later workshop, tying Spratling's use of native stone to the geography of the Pacific coast he knew, and are sought by collectors of his sculptural holloware.
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