Belt Buckle of Four Balls Down One Side and Striated

The heavy belt buckle was one of the two forms Spratling's workshop made from the very start, and this one, four balls down one side set against striated diagonal banding, shows how much character he wrung from plain silver and geometry alone. Morrill records that the earliest pieces from the taller were simple half-dome earrings and heavy silver belt buckles, the metal melted from coins (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994, p. 156).

The striated and corded treatment ties back to Spratling's own account of his sources, in which rings and buckles "embodied cord designs derived from saddle ornaments," the charro horseman's regalia reworked into modern silver (Morrill, p. 156). The asymmetry of balls on one side against banding on the other is the kind of considered imbalance that gives an early piece its weight.

This design was produced in three sizes; the medium example sits between the workshop's smaller and grande models.

It is recorded across the principal Spratling literature, including the Cederwall and Riney Spratling Silver volumes, Morrill and Berk's Mexican Silver, and Davis and Pack's Mexican Jewelry.