Cuff Bracelet with Crescents of Azur Malachite Rather Than

This cuff carries crescents of azur malachite rather than the more familiar rosewood, a substitution that swaps warm wood for the blue-green stone and shows Spratling reworking a single design across materials. It is a First Design Period piece, from the years after the 1931 founding of the taller.

Crescent forms set into a silver band turn on the contrast Spratling pursued throughout his work, the play of metal against a richly colored inlay (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994, p. 73). Choosing malachite over rosewood keeps the rhythm of the design while changing its temperature entirely.

The cuff is recorded in Phyllis M. Goddard's Spratling Silver: A Field Guide. The malachite variant is the scarcer reading of the form, the rosewood version being the more customary one.