Graduated Hollow Bead Necklace

Graduated hollow silver beads, each separated by a very small bead, form this necklace, with five of the larger beads pierced and finished with incised lines that accent the openings. The graduation gives the strand its swelling profile, and the pierced beads add a passage of openwork and texture against the otherwise smooth spheres.

Beadwork was a deep workshop competence: Spratling's silver was rolled thin to make beads, and bead-making ran through the production at Las Delicias and its partner shops (Morrill, p. 36). The piercing here is calar, the cutting or piercing of silver to create a design (Morrill, p. 15).

From the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, and marked with the joined "WS" (Morrill, p. 39), the necklace rests on its early date, the integrity of the graduated beads, and a period hallmark.