Turkey Necklace

A necklace whose motif derives from Spratling's own "turkey necklace," this is a silver-plate piece produced by the American manufacturer Silson rather than made in the Taxco taller. It shows how thoroughly Spratling's designs traveled, a workshop original reinterpreted in plate for the United States market.

The arrangement let his Mexican design vocabulary reach a wider, lower-priced audience through a different metal, the same path his owl and hummingbird designs took into Silson production. The turkey, a bird native to Mexico, sits comfortably within the repertoire of native forms he favored.

Silson necklaces after Spratling designs occupy a distinct corner of his output and surface only occasionally.