Belt Buckle of Twisted Silver Cord

A belt buckle formed from twisted silver cord, this piece turns a rope-like motif into a functional fastening, the twisted strands worked in solid silver to give the buckle its texture and rhythm. The cord design derives from a vocabulary Spratling drew on early, when rings and buckles embodied cord designs taken from saddle ornaments (Morrill, pdf p. 39).

The buckle dates to the First Design Period, 1931 to 1946, the years when heavy silver buckles were among the earliest objects the workshop produced. A twisted-cord buckle belongs to that foundational group, the plain, weighty forms from which the Taxco school's vocabulary grew.

The cord motif ties the piece directly to Spratling's stated early sources, the Colonial and charrería saddle ornaments he translated into silver. A twisted-cord buckle is a compact artifact of the design method at the origin of the Taxco revival he founded in 1931.