Description
Hector Aguilar Taxco 940 silver Orchid and botanical pins. Selling both, the orchid or lily is 2.25" x 2", The solid leaf pin is 2.75" x 2 3/8", total weight for both 37 grams
Hector Aguilar was a master silversmith, jewelry maker, and the first graduate<br>from William Spratling’s famous apprenticeships in Taxco, Mexico. He met<br>Spratling almost by chance while bringing a load of tourists to Taxco from<br>Mexico City in the 1930s. Aguilar was one of Spratling’s best pupils, who often<br>worked with close-to-pure silver (rated at 980 instead of the 925 of sterling<br>silver on the silver scale). Aguilar was also a great businessman who only<br>stayed at Spratling’s workshop for three years before finding investors for his<br>own workshop, Taller Borda.<br><br>Aguilar’s Taller Borda became a huge success in 1943, when they secured a<br>contract with an American jewelry company, Coro. They produced several notable<br>designs for Coro throughout the 1940s. Hector kept Taller Borda running until<br>1966 when he closed up shop and enjoyed a nearly 20-year retirement, his place<br>in the firmament of great Mexican silversmiths already secured.<br><br>What kind of art did Hector Aguilar make?<br>Hector Aguilar was a silversmith, jewelry designer, and artist whose work helped<br>popularize Mexican silver in the 1940s and 1950s. His workshop’s pieces for the<br>retailer, Coro were instrumental in this endeavor. That relationship lasted<br>nearly a decade and produced some of Aguilar’s most vital work. As with most of<br>the Mexican silversmiths from this time, these designs were heavily inspired by<br>pre-Columbian artifacts and the folk art of Mesoamerica. Aguilar’s work<br>continued to innovate over the next several decades, bolstered the quality of<br>his pieces, which often used much more pure silver than his competitors. These<br>days Aguilar’s jewelry is highly sought after for his mastery of the craft of<br>silversmithing as well as its extremely high silver rating.<br><br>How did silversmith Hector Aguilar get started?<br>Hector Aguilar was born in 1905 in Mexico City. Not much is known of his early<br>years, but a chance encounter with William Spratling in the early 1930s set him<br>on a silversmithing career that would span three decades. Aguilar brought<br>tourists from Mexico City to the small town of Taxco, a place that as fate would<br>have it also was where Spratling was starting his silver workshop. Aguilar<br>worked for several years as the shop manager for Spratling while also becoming<br>an apprentice silversmith. After three years, Aguilar left to start his own<br>workshop, Taller Borda. That workshop would create countless beautiful pieces,<br>with unceasing quality up until its closure in 1966.
