Clasped Hands Brooch

A rectangular lapel button showing clasped hands over an applied gold Western hemisphere is among the most historically charged objects Spratling ever made, a wartime emblem of Pan-American unity he called the continental solidarity button. The clasped hands over the Americas, rendered in silver with gold, gave the hemisphere a wearable symbol at a moment of hemispheric alliance.

Littleton's The Color of Silver quotes Spratling's July 1942 letter to Elizabeth Morrow describing a wave of publicity, the button selling across Mexico and ordered from Venezuela, Buenos Aires, Havana, and American cities, with Macy's giving it a full window. The motif was used on cuff links, a brooch, and a pendant, and the button is the only Spratling design so far known to carry a registry number stamped on the piece. It is recorded in Silver Jewelry Designs and in Goddard's field guide.

That documented commercial reach makes the button an unusually well-attested Spratling object, and a piece carrying both the applied gold hemisphere and a registry stamp is a recognizable example of one of his most circulated wartime designs.