Azur Malachite Leaf Brooch

Carved from a single rich vein of azurmalachite, the three leaves of this brooch display the stone's characteristic swirl of deep azurite blue and oxidized malachite green, fanning outward from a sculptural silver bow that gathers them at the stem. The bow is cast with generous volume and extends upward into a cluster of radiating silver stems at the knot — an unusual, almost vernacular touch that gives the whole composition a bouquet-like quality rarely seen in the more architecturally austere work of the Spratling workshop.

Azurmalachite was among the distinctive Mexican minerals that found their way into the Taller during the First Design Period (1931–1946), when, as Morrill has documented, the workshop's design language moved steadily beyond literal pre-Columbian and colonial references toward a growing confidence in material itself. The leaf form here belongs to that evolution: figurative but not iconographic, the natural banding of the stone doing expressive work that an engraved motif might otherwise supply. The silver bezel-setting and small scroll connector linking the leaves reflect the careful lapidary integration characteristic of the period.

The stone's saturated interplay of blue and green gives the piece a chromatic presence that belies its scale.

Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles, California

Leaf Brooch, 1949

Accession M.2018.68.58. Official museum record Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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