Tortoise Shell One Piece Buckle Depicting Joined Hands

A one-piece buckle in silver and tortoise shell, worked with joined hands and a yin-yang symbol, shows the more figural and emblematic side of Spratling's Third Design Period buckles. The tortoise shell warms the silver, and the emblem turns a functional object into something legible as a sign.

Silver-and-tortoiseshell combinations were among the "new gadgets" Spratling developed as his designs moved toward simpler form and emphasis on surface (Morrill, p. 73). The buckle remained a core form for him from the workshop's earliest belt buckles onward (Morrill, p. 39).

The piece is recorded in Penny Morrill's Maestros de Plata and Phyllis Goddard's Spratling Silver field guide.