Silver bracelet with turquoise and twisted wire scrolls / Native American; Navajo (Diné)
Essay/Description
Cuff bracelet with fussy decoration surrounding an oval bezel-set turquoise stone. A whiff of Fred Harvey perhaps. The cuff is composed of a silver sheet partially sawn in two places so that the center could be spread wide to support the applied decoration. The ends of the cuff were not sawn. The cuff edges are lined with applied delicate twisted wire that ends in four scrolls--two flanking each side of the stone. The bezel is soldered to a sheet silver backing that extends beyond the stone to support more applied decoration: Delicate twisted wire surrounds the bezel and is itself partly surrounded by wire, square in cross-section, that meets at both top and bottom of stone with double scrolls and a silver ball. Bracketing this and attached to the cuff beyond the edge of the bezel back are two lines of balls, more twisted wire, an openwork lattice type section created with flat silver wire, more twisted wire and another row of balls. The exposed front of the cuff not covered by the applied elements has been punched with geometric designs mostly diamond and scallop shapes.