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An extraordinarily large and complex McKee Platero Navajo silver ring with Spiny oyster shell and black jet, c. 2014
ex: Martha H. Struever Collection, Santa Fe, NM
IN THE 35-PLUS YEARS that we have been enthusiastically buying, selling, admiring and collecting McKee Platero’s fantastic Navajo jewelry, this is one of the more interesting and exciting pieces of his we have seen. Everything about
it is fascinating; the complex design, the large size and powerful visual impact, the imaginative and technically brilliant fabrication. It’s quite simply one of the very finest and most dramatic and daring pieces ever made by one of the very finest Native American jewelry artists ever born, a true artistic tour de force that functions just as well as a piece of jewelry as it does a precious metal sculpture so when you aren’t wearing it and admiring it that way, you can display it and continue admiring it from an entirely different perspective. It’s hard to take one’s eyes off it, believe us.
And now, some brief remarks on the details of the ring’s unique construction. The ring’s silver shank is a very difficult to execute heavy triple split-chisel design. On top of the silver shank there is a large, fabricated silver bezel platform the interior of which which has been oxidized to a darker color in the middle section which holds the various old-style “foldover” type brightly polished silver bezels holding all the various stones as well as the various and many applied polished silver decorative elements, ten very finely-stamped round silver buttons, five on each side in slightly different sizes and four round applied polished silver wire curlicue-shaped designs, one at each corner. All these elements add up to form the details of the somewhat abstract figurative overall design, which taken as a whole has a strangely stylized, anthropomorphic almost butterfly or bird aspect and resemblance to it as well.
At left, Navajo silversmith, McKee Platero in Santa Fe, c. 1995. At center, the ring pictured on Martha Struever's 2014 Santa Fe exhibition catlaog featuring several McKee Platero pieces including this ring. At right, Martha H. (Marti) Struever (1931-2017) at her home in Santa Fe, NM, c. 2012.
Center photo source and © Private Collection. Right photo source and © marthastruever.com
The ring is in extremely fine original condition, It has clearly been worn carefully and shows some very slight signs
of wear but there are no damages in evidence and it has a marvelous warm patina. The ring also has a completely excellent history, it was purchased as seen above in 2014 from the collection of one of our distinguished Santa Fe Native Art colleagues, the late great dealer and collector, Martha H. (Marti) Struever (1931-2017) at her annual August summer exhibition and sale in Santa Fe. For a number of years during this time period, Struever represented McKee Platero's work in Santa Fe regularly and very likely obtained this ring directly from him. The ring's lucky purchaser at the time was an excellent and extremely knowledgeable collector on the East Coast who has also been
a longtime client of ours, who kept it for the next eleven years until just very recently passing it on to us. And, as the proverbial "cherry" on top of everything else on this delcious sundae, the ring just plain feels good on, with a beautiful weight and a delightful smoothness.
As we said earlier, this spectacular ring is a singular artistic achievement, a splendid small silver sculpture which is almost impossible to take one’s eyes off, it can command and hold a room on its own. This one is definitely one for the record books and if there is ever an art monograph or a major museum exhibition done on McKee Platero’s jewelry which there most certainly should be, this unique ring should most certainly have a place in it. That’s pretty much
all we have to say on this one, on a scale of one to ten, we’d modestly give it a solid twelve.
SOLD
The stark visual contrast between the darkly-oxidized center section and the brightly polished silver bezels and decorative elements gives the composition a great degree of vibrancy and dynamic energy. Overall, it’s a unique and amazingly intricate artistic arrangement to contemplate. There are seven set stones and shell pieces in total, all very finely hand-cut and very beautifully fashioned; three large pieces of beautiful hand-cut deep red spiny oyster shell down the ring’s middle surrounded by four small round pieces of highly-polished black jet.
The size and scale of the piece are impressive. The ring’s face measures 2 1/8" in length and is 1 3/8" in width at its widest point and yet it still nevertheless sits very nicely and remarkably comfortably on the hand. The ring measures
a size 9 1/2 on a professional graduated ring sizer and it weighs a substantial, yet surprisingly comfortable to wear
36 grams or 1 1/4 ounces. The ring is properly signed with McKee Platero’s usual three-dots in a row signature, symbolic of the three stars in the belt of the constellation Orion, on the underside of the silver bezel platform.
