Description
Large Matl Sterling Turquoise Amethyst repousse birds pendant/pin, 4" tall x 3<br>1/8" wide 47 grams. No damage.<br><br>MAT-MATILDE POULAT & RICARDO SALAS JEWELRY<br>Matl is the mark that appears on some of the most beautiful and unique jewelry<br>in Mexico.<br>Matilde Eugenia Poulat introduced MATL in 1934 and, since her death in 1960, her<br>designs and techniques have been carried on by her nephew, Ricardo Salas. For<br>sr. Salas, who can recite poetry in the language of the Aztecs, the mark matl,<br>has greater meaning in its reference to the Nahuatl or Aztec word for water,<br>atl.<br><br>As a young woman, Matilde Poulat studied painting at the prestigious San Carlos<br>academy of fine arts in Mexico city, she went on to teach painting classes at an<br>art school until her interest turned exclusively to silver. Matilde Poulat´s<br>designs for jewelry and figures were part of the new cultural vision among<br>Mexico’s intellectuals after the revolution in 1920s, artists were searching for<br>Mexican aesthetic, rejection European subjects in favor of the art of the<br>pre-conquest Indians and of the Mexican pueblos. Sra. Poulat found inspiration<br>in the mextec gold jewelry discovered in 1932 at Monte Alban. Her choice of<br>motifs the dove, flowers, and tiny bells are reminiscent of the whimsical<br>subjects of contemporary Mexican folk art.<br><br>Matilde Poulat received international recognition for her jewelry when she was<br>asked in 1941 to participate in an exhibit of Latin American silver at the pan<br>American union in Washington, D.C. as a result of increasing demand for matl<br>silver during world war ii , the number of silversmiths in the taller increased<br>to thirty-three. In 1950, Srta. Poulat and her nephew opened a showroom on the<br>first floor of her home, where she also had the workshop. Ricardo Salas recalls<br>that they made three thousand types of silver jewelry and one hundred different<br>pieces.<br><br>Ricardo Salas worked closely with his aunt from the time he was eleven years of<br>age. He says she recognized his artistic talent when she saw him do a play with<br>puppets he had made himself. Sr. Salas was sent to the San Carlos academy, where<br>he received the premio Diego Rivera. As a youth, he learned the techniques of<br>the silversmith and perfected the carving of "Off White", coral, turquoise, and<br>other stones used in the jewelry and figurines. From sr. Salas perspective, he<br>and his aunt collaborated so closely as designers, that there really cannot be a<br>comparison of their work.<br><br>In 1955, William Spratling wrote of Matilde Poulat: “she has continued to<br>produce some of the most charming native jewelry in Mexico, intensely her own.<br>Her jewelry has the same charm and delightful surface and colorful quality of<br>the old lacquer work of Uruapan. Spratling`s admiration for matl silver reflects<br>his recognition of their shared appreciation for Mexican native art. This mutual<br>inspiration led each of the two artists in different directions within the same<br>medium. The exuberance of matl silver resembles the interiors of the churches in<br>Puebla, like the chapel of Santa Maria Tonantzintla, where Indians covered the<br>interior of the dome with polychromed and gilded angels. In matl silver, the<br>introduction of color is accomplished with bits of coral, turquoise, and<br>amethyst quartz. The surfaces are decorated with applied wire and elaborated<br>with embossing and repousse of astounding complexity (pl.XXIII-1, XXIII-10).<br>Matilde Poulat and Ricardo Salas have been successful in incorporating the<br>artistic language of the Mixtecs into jewelry and silver figures with<br>imagination, drama, and with a style that is completely personal.
