Obsidian "Needles" on Silver Ball Chain

Obsidian "needles" strung along a silver ball chain give this necklace its spare, linear drama, the black volcanic glass drawn out into slender points against the beaded metal. The same design was also made in gold and in tortoiseshell, marking it as a model the workshop worked in more than one material.

Obsidian was a native Mexican stone with deep Pre-Conquest associations, among the materials brought to wide public attention by the 1932 Tomb 7 finds at Monte Albán that fed the design imagination of the Taxco school (Morrill, p. 38). Here it is drawn into a strictly modern, abstract composition rather than an archaeological copy.

Recorded in Davis and Pack's Mexican Jewelry and in Morrill's Maestros de Plata study, the necklace is a documented example of the workshop's obsidian jewelry, the gold and tortoiseshell variants broadening the design family.

Los Angeles County Museum of ArtLos Angeles, California

Needle Necklace and Earrings, before 1960

Accession M.2015.90a-c. Official museum record Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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