Plaque of Mayan Woman Set in Concave Blue Painted Hollow

A Mayan woman, worked in silver and set into a concave blue-painted hollow framed in black, gives this plaque its quiet drama - the recessed ground cradling the figure and the colored field heightening the silver. The format treats the relief as a small framed sculpture rather than an applied ornament.

The subject continues Spratling's translation of pre-Columbian imagery into modern decorative form, the practice Stromberg places at the center of his method (p. 27).

With no scholarly reference recorded, this is a sparsely documented piece, one of the uncommon figural plaques from the workshop.