Stunning Cerillos Green Turquoise Cross
Horace Iule
- Marked Down $675.00
- Gallery Price $850.00
- Title
- Stunning Cerillos Green Turquoise Cross
- Artist
- Horace Iule
- Medium
- Sterling silver and natural Cerillos turquoise
- Troy ounces
- 1.54 troy ounces
- Size
- 3" height X 2 1/8" width (cross), endless chain is 26 1/2" in length.
- Signed
- The artist did not sign work made this early in his career.
- Date of creation
- 1930's
- Condition
- Excellent. Two stones one at center and one at foot feature naturally healed fractures.
- Turquoise
- Ranges in color from dark green to deep blue green, natural American turquoise from Cerillos mine
- Design
- The chain was made by the artist, every link soldered with no clasp. The cross bail is soldered. The stones were set in saw tooth bezels after the soldering was done.
- Provenance
- Private collection CC WH
- Gram weight
- 47.7 grams
- About The Stunning Cerillos Green Turquoise Cross
This handsome cross was hand crafted by Zuni master, Horace Iule. His style is well known, enough that earlier unsigned pieces like this can easily be attributed to his hand.
One very unique thing about this cross is the hand-made endless soldered chain, each link of which is an oval shape of square drawn ingot wire 1/8" in width X 3/16" in length, 1 mm square.
Its design features are deeply defined with hand-stamped "rays" emanating from the head, arms and body of a risen Christ replaced by seven natural turquoise stones. These are a reminder of the earth, water and sky of which are bodies are made to house a spirit living forever.
- About Horace Iule
(Circa 1900 - late 1970's) Taught to make jewelry by his father, Horace Iule was known for his sandcast work, his channel inlay and cluster work as well as his crosses often adorned with set stones of turquoise or coral. He was a third generation Zuni jeweler, learning silversmithing from his father in 1924 after having learned blacksmithing at the Phoenix Indian School in the early 1920's.
"He is credited with being the first in 1928 to create jewelry based on Knifewing, the Zuni spirit of the Zenith. Iule carved his sandcast molds out of stone." Gregory Schaaf's book American Indian Jewelry I 1,200 Artists Biographies
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