Hummingbird Brooch

An early hummingbird brooch in silver, this piece belongs to the figural bird subjects of Spratling's first years, the small bird worked in metal as a wearable emblem of Mexican fauna. The hummingbird is rendered in silver alone, its interest resting in the modeling of the form rather than in any stone or color.

The brooch dates to Spratling's First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, the formative years at Las Delicias when the workshop was establishing its repertoire of motifs. A very similar design was produced by Silson in silver plate, the United States costume maker that issued plated interpretations of Spratling motifs during the 1940s, so the hummingbird circulated both as handwrought Spratling silver and as an affordable plated counterpart.

Early figural pins like this document the natural and Pre-Columbian subjects Spratling drew on as he built the vocabulary of the Taxco revival he founded in 1931. The relationship between the solid-silver original and its plated Silson echo is part of what gives a hummingbird brooch its interest for collectors tracing how his designs reached the broader market.