Large Silver Bow Brooch

A large bow built from bands of silver ribbon, this brooch takes a familiar decorative form and gives it scale and presence, the looped and trailing bands worked so the metal mimics tied cloth. It is a piece of figural charm rather than abstraction, the kind of design that found a ready audience for Taxco silver.

From the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, the bow shows the workshop forming flat silver bands into a three-dimensional, ribbon-like shape, a technical as much as a decorative exercise. It is recorded in Morrill's Maestros de Plata.

Worked in 980 silver under the joined "WS" mark Spratling adapted from his horse brand (Morrill, p. 39), the brooch turns on its early date, the integrity of the ribbon bands, and a period hallmark.