Celtic Cross Bracelet

This linked bracelet of bold stylized crosses is one of the best known of all William Spratling's designs, and it sits at the center of his founding role in the Taxco silver revival. Spratling drew the motif from the Nuttall Codex, a pre-Hispanic manuscript depicting Mixtec history, and in doing so embodied the program that made his work matter: taking the visual language of ancient Mexico and remaking it as modern silver. Introduced in the mid-1930s during his First Design Period, the bracelet became a signature of the school he created.

The design is built from bold, heavy links connected by silver pins, including the pin that fastens the bracelet on the wrist, so that the closure is integral to the form rather than hidden. Each link carries deep flat chasing, and on genuine early examples the silver has acquired a soft, almost matte patina that reflects the shadows thrown by the depth of that chasing. The effect is sculptural and architectural, a row of strong forms reading as a single unified band.

The bracelet's popularity tells its own story about the period. From its introduction it was extraordinarily popular both with the buying public and with other silversmiths, who produced an incalculable number of copies, some identical and some slightly modified. The design was not made in Spratling's taller after early 1946, which sharply defines the window for original workshop production, and it was later reissued.

The piece is recorded across the core Spratling literature, including Morrill and Berk's Mexican Silver, Cederwall and Riney's Spratling Silver, Taylor D. Littleton's The Color of Silver, and Phyllis M. Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. For collectors, distinguishing an early workshop bracelet from the many later copies is the whole game, and the genuine patina and pin construction are where that reading is made.