Hummingbird Brooch by Silson

A hummingbird in flight, this brooch is one of the silver-plate pieces Spratling designed for the American manufacturer Silson rather than producing in his own taller, the result of a licensing arrangement that put his motifs into a different metal and market. Victor Silson's patent for the design was dated December 3, 1940, for a term of three and a half years, the application describing it as a "new, original, and ornamental Design for a Brooch or Similar Article."

Spratling also made this same design in sterling, so the piece exists in two forms: the Silson silver-plate version produced under patent in New York and the workshop original in solid silver. The relationship let his Mexican design vocabulary reach a wider, lower-priced audience without passing through the Taxco taller.

Silson pieces after Spratling designs occupy a distinct corner of his output, prized as much for the documented patent history as for the object itself.