Crocodile Brooch (Prendedor en forma de cocodrilo)

Modern Mexican and Peruvian Silver
© artist or artist's estate
My gallery Comment Tag Order Photography*
View comments
No comments have been posted yet.
Add a comment
Please log in to add comments.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
Current tags
This item has not been tagged yet.
Please log in to add tags.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
* Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site. Other images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. By using any of these images you agree to LACMA's Terms of Use.

Crocodile Brooch (Prendedor en forma de cocodrilo)

Mexico, circa 1940
Jewelry and Adornments; brooches
Silver
1 × 2 3/8 × 1/4 in. (2.54 × 6.03 × 0.64 cm)
Gift of Penny Morrill, McLean, Virginia, in honor of Ronald A. Belkin (M.2015.91.1)
Latin American Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

Héctor Aguilar was one of Taxco’s most talented designers. In 1935 he began working for William Spratling (1900–1967) as a shop manager at the Taller de Las Delicias.

...

Héctor Aguilar was one of Taxco’s most talented designers. In 1935 he began working for William Spratling (1900–1967) as a shop manager at the Taller de Las Delicias. Two years later he apprenticed with Spratling, and by 1939 he opened his own workshop, the Taller Borda, recruiting and training hundreds of silversmiths and going on to become one of the leading silver industries of Taxco. Many of Aguilar’s objects show his interest in ancient art and architecture, including this crocodile brooch—part of a set that represents Aztec and Mixtec calendric symbols.


Ilona Katzew, Curator and Department Head, Latin American Art
More...

Bibliography

  • Kaplan, Wendy, ed. Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2017.