Rosewood Cross

This cross in silver and rosewood was one of the earliest designs in which Spratling brought the two materials together in a piece of jewelry, an experiment that helped establish the silver-with-hardwood pairing at the heart of Taxco modernism. The cross form also reflects his occasional engagement with Mexican vernacular religious imagery, a vein he drew on far less than the Pre-Columbian sources that ran through the Las Delicias workshop.

From the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, the piece dates to a moment when the workshop's design vocabulary had not yet fully standardized, which is part of why early silver-and-rosewood crosses survive in limited numbers. The pairing of the warm wood against worked silver is the whole point of the design.

Worked in the 980 silver Spratling preferred over sterling and marked with the joined "WS" adapted from his horse brand (Morrill, p. 39), the cross is recorded in Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide.

Value here rests on first-period attribution, an early mark, and the condition of the rosewood, checking, shrinkage, and secure seating in the silver mount. An early example with intact wood and a crisp hallmark is what a collector confirms.