Aztec Mask Brooch

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Object record

Catalogue no.: MoMS-000143
Form: Brooch
Date: First Design Period: 1931 - 1946
Materials: Silver
Dimensions: 1 1/2 x 2 3/4"

Curatorial note

A brooch of twisted silver wire worked into the suggestion of an Aztec mask, the wirework reading as the linear features of a face. Spratling's own wholesale catalog described it as an ancient Aztec design, and it carried a national audience: it sold through Montgomery Ward in 1943 for $6.95. The piece is recorded in those Montgomery Ward catalogs and in Goddard's field guide.

The Aztec mask belongs squarely to the pre-Columbian vocabulary Spratling described as a point of departure for his early work, where pre-Columbian seals and motifs became brooches (Morrill, pdf p. 39). Rendering the mask in twisted wire rather than solid sheet gives it an open, linear character.

The Montgomery Ward sales sit within the documented chapter of Spratling's national reach: his silver ran in those catalogs from 1943 to 1946 (Morrill, p. 257).

With its original catalog description, its national distribution, and its place in those references, the twisted-wire mask is a well-documented example of Spratling's pre-Columbian figural work in the first design period.