Description
Large Matl style Sterling Turquoise Amethyst repousse birds pendant/pin,
MAT-MATILDE POULAT & RICARDO SALAS JEWELRY Matl is the mark that appears on some of the most beautiful and unique jewelry
in Mexico.
Matilde Eugenia Poulat introduced MATL in 1934 and, since her death in 1960, her
designs and techniques have been carried on by her nephew, Ricardo Salas. For
sr. Salas, who can recite poetry in the language of the Aztecs, the mark matl,
has greater meaning in its reference to the Nahuatl or Aztec word for water,
atl.
As a young woman, Matilde Poulat studied painting at the prestigious San Carlos
academy of fine arts in Mexico city, she went on to teach painting classes at an
art school until her interest turned exclusively to silver. Matilde Poulat´s
designs for jewelry and figures were part of the new cultural vision among
Mexico’s intellectuals after the revolution in 1920s, artists were searching for
Mexican aesthetic, rejection European subjects in favor of the art of the
pre-conquest Indians and of the Mexican pueblos. Sra. Poulat found inspiration
in the mextec gold jewelry discovered in 1932 at Monte Alban. Her choice of
motifs the dove, flowers, and tiny bells are reminiscent of the whimsical
subjects of contemporary Mexican folk art.
Matilde Poulat received international recognition for her jewelry when she was
asked in 1941 to participate in an exhibit of Latin American silver at the pan
American union in Washington, D.C. as a result of increasing demand for matl
silver during world war ii , the number of silversmiths in the taller increased
to thirty-three. In 1950, Srta. Poulat and her nephew opened a showroom on the
first floor of her home, where she also had the workshop. Ricardo Salas recalls
that they made three thousand types of silver jewelry and one hundred different
pieces.
Ricardo Salas worked closely with his aunt from the time he was eleven years of
age. He says she recognized his artistic talent when she saw him do a play with
puppets he had made himself. Sr. Salas was sent to the San Carlos academy, where
he received the premio Diego Rivera. As a youth, he learned the techniques of
the silversmith and perfected the carving of "Off White", coral, turquoise, and
other stones used in the jewelry and figurines. From sr. Salas perspective, he
and his aunt collaborated so closely as designers, that there really cannot be a
comparison of their work.
In 1955, William Spratling wrote of Matilde Poulat: “she has continued to
produce some of the most charming native jewelry in Mexico, intensely her own.
Her jewelry has the same charm and delightful surface and colorful quality of
the old lacquer work of Uruapan. Spratling`s admiration for matl silver reflects
his recognition of their shared appreciation for Mexican native art. This mutual
inspiration led each of the two artists in different directions within the same
medium. The exuberance of matl silver resembles the interiors of the churches in
Puebla, like the chapel of Santa Maria Tonantzintla, where Indians covered the
interior of the dome with polychromed and gilded angels. In matl silver, the
introduction of color is accomplished with bits of coral, turquoise, and
amethyst quartz. The surfaces are decorated with applied wire and elaborated
with embossing and repousse of astounding complexity (pl.XXIII-1, XXIII-10).
Matilde Poulat and Ricardo Salas have been successful in incorporating the
artistic language of the Mixtecs into jewelry and silver figures with
imagination, drama, and with a style that is completely personal.
