This hinged bracelet features a brass zig-zag patterning and was created by the Black artist Winifred Mason. Mason began making jewelry at her family home in Brooklyn in the 1930s before attending New York University (NYU) where she received a Master's in Education. After graduation she worked for the WPA teaching art in Harlem. In 1943 sherelocated to Greenwich Village where she became a vital part of the neighborhood's burgeoning studio jewelry movement. Mason and her jewelry appeared on the cover of Ebony magazine in December 1946. The Christmas themed issue included a five-page spread on her jewelry, with photos by Gordon Parks. The previous year Mason had been awarded the Rosenwald Foundation Fellowship which allowed her to spend six months in Haiti studying the island's art and culture Mason’s application for the grant included a personal statement and in it she wrote, "Through the medium of jewelry, I shall aim to express the desires and aspirations of the West Indian people which are parallel to the desires and aspirations of the American Negro or any other group which has felt the yolk of oppression and in justice." This experience heavily influenced her work. Subsequently, she renamed her shop Haitian Bazaar. Some of her designs from this period feature this lacing pattern, which was perhaps influenced by the construction of a traditional Haitian peg drums that’s she would have observed while living in Part-au-Prince. In 1948 she married a Haitian artist named Jean Evan Chenet in New York and in 1949 the couple moved to Haiti. This bracelet, signed CHENET was made after was married but before she relocated.

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