American artist William Spratling supported the 20th-century revival of Mexican silversmithing. In the late 1920s, Spratling visited the village of Taxco, located about seventy miles from Mexico City and known for its silver mines. After repeat visits, Spratling settled there in 1929, and in 1931, founded a workshop called Taller de las Delicias where he designed and made silver jewelry. Much of his work looked to ancient Mesoamerican iconography as part of the ongoing nationalist discourse of celebrating Indigenous art forms in the post-colonial era. In this brooch Spratling reflects ancient American representations of the jaguar, a symbol of power and strength. In Spratling’s 1932 book Little Mexico he describes the danza del tigre, or the dance of the jaguar, which has pre-Hispanic roots and is still practiced today, in some instances to encourage rain before the growing season. Perhaps Spratling’s witnessing of this custom informed the creation of his Jaguar Brooch.

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