Salvador Terán
Sun and Moon Earrings (Aretes con el sol y la luna)1955-1960

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Salvador Terán
Mexico, 1920-1974
Title: Sun and Moon Earrings (Aretes con el sol y la luna)
Date Made: 1955-1960
Medium: Silver, bone
Dimensions: a-b: 1 9/16 × 1 3/4 × 1/2 in. (3.97 × 4.45 × 1.27 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Ronald A. Belkin, Long Beach, California
Accession Number: M.2015.249.9a-b
Classification: Jewelry and Adornments
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Like many of his contemporaries, Salvador Terán had a keen interest in Mesoamerican art. This silver and bone earring design of the sun and the moon—which Terán also adapted to pendants (M.2018.68.51) and brooches (M.2013.211.3)—recalls images in the famous sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, in which Indigenous artists portrayed the celestial bodies as anthropomorphic beings with faces (https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/7/folio/7r?spTexts=&nhTexts=).

Terán began silversmithing as an apprentice at William Spratling’s Taller de Las Delicias (established in 1935) in Taxco, Mexico, before branching out with his cousins, the Castillo brothers (https://collections.lacma.org/object/198115), to form their own workshop in 1939. In 1952, Terán opened a studio in Mexico City and started creating designs under his own name.

Rachel Kaplan

2024
Copyright: © artist or artist's estate

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Salvador Terán
Mexico, 1920-1974
Title: Sun and Moon Earrings (Aretes con el sol y la luna)
Date Made: 1955-1960
Medium: Silver, bone
Dimensions: a-b: 1 9/16 × 1 3/4 × 1/2 in. (3.97 × 4.45 × 1.27 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Ronald A. Belkin, Long Beach, California
Accession Number: M.2015.249.9a-b
Classification: Jewelry and Adornments
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Like many of his contemporaries, Salvador Terán had a keen interest in Mesoamerican art. This silver and bone earring design of the sun and the moon—which Terán also adapted to pendants (M.2018.68.51) and brooches (M.2013.211.3)—recalls images in the famous sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, in which Indigenous artists portrayed the celestial bodies as anthropomorphic beings with faces (https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/7/folio/7r?spTexts=&nhTexts=).

Terán began silversmithing as an apprentice at William Spratling’s Taller de Las Delicias (established in 1935) in Taxco, Mexico, before branching out with his cousins, the Castillo brothers (https://collections.lacma.org/object/198115), to form their own workshop in 1939. In 1952, Terán opened a studio in Mexico City and started creating designs under his own name.

Rachel Kaplan

2024