When I say south, I mean waaaay south: Alabama, Georgia, New Orleans, and finally Mexico City & Taxco. Most people think of a svelte,
urbane jewelry designer with powerful connections to the northeast art and jewelery markets when they look at Spratling jewelry and his designs, but nothing could be farther from the
truth.
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| classic early jewelry of the jewelry renaissance in Taxco |
Spratling was invited to teach some course at the Mexico State National University in 1927-1928 on Spanish Colonial architecture. He liked Mexico so well, he remained there with the intellectual and artistic community that had also gravitated to Mexico City. He later moved to Taxco and began to design his unique jewelry starting in 1931. As an architect and artist, he brought new life to Mexican jewelry, producing not only silver items but those in copper an other materials as well as overseeing production of tinware, furniture, textiles, weavings, and other things of interest at his workshop.
Other artists of note in Mexico City were Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Diego Rivera, Manuel Alvarez Bravo just to name a few. Terrible things were afoot in the
countryside with the massacre of clerics by the government of strongman Plutarco Calles.
Leon Trotsky lived and was assisinated in Mexico City – a kind of Casablanca of
refugees, artists and desperate people with a cruel government still smoldering
from revolution. All you needed was Rick's Café Américain and the strains of “As Time Goes By” to set
the mood. Between 1933 and 1945, Mexico
accepted Jewish refugees from Europe as well as Spanish refugees from the
Spanish Civil War, even Armenians came as well as many others. Mexico City had become a boiling caldron
rather than a melting pot. Along with
the overcrowding and misery, an artistic explosion came from that ancient capital of the Aztecs,
who were no strangers to war and strife themselves. 
All that stage setting being said, the subject at hand is a
William Spratling necklace in the arts and crafts tradition of early Spratling
jewelry with Artemio Navarrete's mark. On early jewelry,
Spratling purposely left some of the file work showing, soldering not ground away smoothly, and a tool marks to appear on the piece
such as hammer blows on the inside.
Later Spratling workshop in the late 30s and through the 40s, pieces were more highly polished and the beautiful
irregularities of hand-work was smoothed away for a more mass-production look
consistent with demand of post-war silver smiths. Not so with this work, all the labor and care is to be seen by the
perceptive collector’s eye. Later in
the 1940s he began to receive contracts for jewelry and it had to be consistent, shiny, and less arts and crafts for the "smart set" buyers in the United
States.
This piece is made up of dapped hemispheres, soldered with wire rinks and flat backers. The two turkey vultures are made free form and with individualistic stamping. It is finished up with a hand-made chain with a wire hook fastener. This piece shows variations consistent with individually crafted jewelry This early period of Spratling jewelry shows traditional Mexican silver making techniques as Spratling employed Mexican silver smiths early on, starting with Artemio Navarrete as his first worker in 1931 who made the first pieces for on Spratling's dining room table with the tools and expertise that he brought from Iguala. Later Spratling opened a workship added more masters (I will make a later post about them), who then had their apprentices who learning the craft, and perpetuating the art at Taller de Delicias. Eventually, his workshops employed hundreds of silversmiths, masters, and apprentices all under the watchful eye of William Spratling the designer and architect of his realm.
Of interest on this piece, are the bells which are the traditional
casabeles used in early Mexican silverwork with hand sawed openings, typically
seen on Spratling pieces. File and saw
marks can be clearly seen on this work, the backers on the hemispheres are
clearly made of fine nearly pure platero sheet silver, rolled in-house from
ingots purchased directly from Taxco silver mines. He also probably made his own silver wire at with the same shop. This is a quite early piece and interestingly with the stamp of maestro Artemio Navarrete, who had been a master gold and silver jeweler in nearby Iguala, about 10 miles down the road who joined Spratling and started the workshop in June of 1931. 
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| note Armenio Navarrete mark |
I’ve had this piece for about 35 years and every time I take
it out, I see new, nuanced things about the Arts and Crafts movement, Mexican
craftsmanship, and jeweler's techniques in the early phase of Spratling
Jewelry. I had amassed this information
and just wanted to share it with the blogging public, so you can enjoy the
mélange of art, history, and craftsmanship of a by-gone period of history and know a bit more about the inspiration, genius and drive of William Spratling.
For reference on a similar piece, see Spratling Silver: A Field Guide by
Phyllis Goddard, figure 2-32, page 35.
See also figure 2-162, page 57 and the associated website http://www.spratlingsilver.com
Additional links of interest on Mexico and Mexican art and politics of
the 20-30s
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