Square Tortoise Shell Button

A square of tortoiseshell held in place by silver tabs, this button reduces Spratling's recurring silver-and-shell pairing to its barest terms, the warm translucent material framed and pinned by bright metal. The construction makes the shell the whole surface and the silver merely its setting.

Morrill identifies the interplay of silver with tortoiseshell as a deliberate strain in Spratling's work, the emphasis falling on richness and textural contrast (Morrill, Mexican Silver, 1994, p. 73). A button is that idea at its smallest scale.

Small accessories of this kind, where shell is the dominant material, surface only occasionally.