Sacred Circles' Coven

Where Silver Is King: A Rich History and Colonial Ambience Make Taxco One of Mexico's Most Engaging Silver Cities

® World and I Magazine 2003

Strolling through Taxco's narrow downtown streets, I quickly discovered that it was impossible to go more than a few yards without someone trying to lure me into a silver shop with promises of the "best prices in town." I also learned to be constantly on the alert for the ubiquitous Volkswagen taxicabs that sneaked up behind me as they beetled their way up steep hills and negotiated impossibly sharp corners. A small army of persistent vendors eager to sell brightly painted wooden masks, tiny boxes, and turtles with bobbing heads attacked me in Taxco's compact main square, the Plaza Borda.

Seeking refuge from all this worldliness, I ducked into Santa Prisca Church, whose outrageously decorated facade and twin steeples tower over the plaza like a fantasy. Inside the massive edifice, I came face-to-face with glittering floor-to-ceiling altars covered with gilded cherubs and angels winging their way heavenward. The building of Santa Prisca Church was financed by Jos? de la Borda, a Frenchman who became one of the wealthiest men in Mexico thanks to the silver he extracted from Taxco's mines. Construction of this lavish church began in 1751 and lasted until 1758. Borda, so the story goes, donated Santa Prisca to Taxco as thanks for the Almighty's generosity, proclaiming that "God gives to Borda, and Borda gives to God." Ironically, as a result of his extravagant lifestyle, Borda eventually had to beg the archbishop of Taxco to return money he had given the church during more prosperous times.

In 1945, a Mexican art historian, Manuel Toussaint, described Santa Prisca as "a homogenous work of art, and of a beauty which cannot be described." Not everyone has been as complimentary as Toussaint, however. In his 1934 travel book Beyond the Mexique Bay, British novelist Aldous Huxley called Santa Prisca "one of the most sumptuous and one of the most ugly" churches in Mexico. While Santa Prisca's opulence may not be everyone's cup of tea, it is a truly remarkable structure and a symbol of the forces that have shaped Taxco. The church was designed by two Spanish architects, Diego Dur?n and Juan Caballero, and decorated by the best Mexican artisans of the time. Today, Santa Prisca is considered to be one of the finest examples of Churrigueresque (Spanish Baroque) architecture in the country. As I was to about to discover, it is only one of many treasures hidden within the maze of Taxco's meandering streets.

Conquistadors and silversmiths

Taxco is reportedly the oldest mining town in the New World. Shortly after the conquest of Mexico in 1519, the conquistador Hern?n Cort?s learned from the Aztecs of gold and silver deposits in the mountains south of Mexico City. In 1528, the Spanish established their first mine, Socavon del Rey, on the spot where Santa Prisca Church now stands. However, it was Jos? de la Borda's unearthing of a rich vein of silver that spawned the eighteenth-century building boom that created the handsome city visitors see today. Clinging to mountainsides in the rugged state of Guerrero at an altitude of nearly six thousand feet, Taxco is one of the best-preserved "silver cities" in Mexico. Its colonial skyline, winding cobblestone lanes, and hidden plazas have changed little over the centuries. The Mexican government declared Taxco a national historical monument in 1928, thus ensuring that its colonial ambience would be preserved. Even new buildings such as hotels and gas stations must blend into the town's existing architecture.

Leaving Santa Prisca Church, I made my way to the northeast corner of Plaza Borda in search of the Museo de la Plater?a. This private silver museum located in the Patio de las Artesan?as, an indoor shopping complex, chronicles the development of silverworking in Taxco. To reach it, I had to walk through corridors crammed with silver boutiques and then descend a flight of stairs into a cavernlike exhibit hall. Although small, the museum contains an extensive selection of award-winning pieces by local silversmiths. What attracted my attention the most was a display of old photographs documenting the life and times of William Spratling, often called the "father of Mexican silver."

Born in Sonyea, New York, in 1900, Spratling was an architect who fell in love with Taxco and bought a house there in 1930. At the time, Spratling wanted a place to finish writing a book about his experiences in Mexico. Although Taxco had been a mining town for centuries, it exported its silver, keeping none for itself. At the suggestion of his close friend Dwight Morrow, then U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Spratling decided to employ some local goldsmiths in a silver workshop and opened a store in Taxco in 1931. He also designed tinware, textiles, and furniture, hiring local artisans to produce them. The enterprise was so successful that he soon opened a larger workshop called Taller de Las Delicias, which eventually became Spratling y Artesanos. By 1941 Spratling had 120 employees and was exporting silver pieces to upscale stores in New York, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus.

Characterized by pre-Columbian motifs and simple designs such as circular disks, ropes, and spheres, Spratling's elegant Art Deco creations redefined Mexican silverwork and turned Taxco into the "Florence of Mexico." During his heyday, the flamboyant designer hobnobbed with leading artists, writers, politicians, and Hollywood movie stars, who were drawn to his charm and Taxco's bohemian atmosphere. Unfortunately, his life came to an untimely end. Early in the morning of August 7, 1967, Spratling left his ranch south of Taxco en route to Mexico City. There had been a storm during the night, and the driver of his car swerved to miss a tree that had fallen across the road, hitting an embankment in the process. Spratling was killed in the wreck. His funeral was held in the Church of Santa Prisca the following afternoon.

On my way out of the shopping complex that houses the Silver Museum, I noticed a tattered book nestled among bracelets and earrings. A photo of Spratling appeared on its cover, so I stopped to chat with the store's owner. He told me that his grandfather had worked with Spratling, and he showed me some of his own award-winning silverwork. Surprisingly enough, Spratling's greatest gift to Taxco was not his artistic talent but the apprenticeship system that he developed for training silversmiths, who usually went on to open their own workshops. Many of the best silversmiths working in Taxco today can trace their roots back to the days of William Spratling.

More than silver

I decided to visit the house that Spratling lived in for sixteen years, which has been turned into a museum. On the way, I dropped into Berta's Cantina, a favorite haunt of expatriates during Spratling's day. This cozy, two-story bar stands on the south side of the Plaza Borda, its bright green tables and windows with tall wooden shutters providing a view of the busy scene. Bullfight posters and old photos of Taxco's streets hang on the cantina's plain white walls. It was here that Spratling claimed to have invented the famous lime juice and tequila drink that came to be known as the margarita. Today the house specialty is the "Berta," a concoction made from honey, tequila, lime juice, and mineral water. The bartender asked if I would like one, but I told him that it was too early in the day and promised that I would return after the sun went down.

Calle del Arco, a busy cobblestone street dominated by a large stone arch, took me past Santa Prisca Church to a small square packed with market stalls. Tables were piled high with grotesque devil masks, wooden angels, brightly painted boxes and trays, serapes, bark paintings, and many other reminders that there is more to Taxco than silver. After perusing the handicrafts, I visited Spratling's former house, now officially called the William Spratling Museum (Museo Guillermo Spratling), a three-story building with ornate wrought-iron trim.

The museum's exhibits turned out to have little to do with silver. Its galleries are lined with glass cases exhibiting pre-Hispanic artifacts collected by Spratling during his travels in the state of Guerrero and other parts of Mexico. Chosen for their aesthetic qualities rather than their archaeological significance, the pieces range from whimsical figurines to elegant jewelry and solemn stone masks. This private collection, which Spratling gave to Taxco in his will, no doubt inspired many of his silver designs. Spratling once said of his future legacy that he wished to leave the Mexican people "a sense of the worth and dignity of the high culture which preceded our own."

Following the same street past more vendors' stalls, I came upon another of Taxco's museums, the Museum of Viceregal Art, commonly known as the Casa Humboldt. German traveler and naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt spent one night here in 1803, leaving behind only his name. The eighteenth-century house is a Moorish structure with red geometric designs adorning its facade and elaborate stone carvings framing its windows and main door. The museum harbors an eclectic collection of religious art, colonial artifacts, and contemporary paintings by Mexican artists. Items from Borda's wardrobe are also on display, as well as an eighteenth-century funeral altar said to have been discovered in a secret room inside Santa Prisca Church. Graphic paintings depicting different aspects of death cover each side of this towering, box-shaped wooden altar.

What intrigued me most about the Casa Humboldt was its unusual design. Like many of Taxco's buildings, it rests on an almost vertical incline. Consequently, the house appears to have only a single story but actually has two lower floors. On each level, arched porticos and brick patios look out over Taxco's romantic skyline. Cramped staircases connect the different floors, and passageways lead to mazes of galleries. On the museum's lowest level, I discovered a small room dedicated to Humboldt. Inside are portraits of this famous explorer plus exhibits documenting his extensive travels. Humboldt was born in Berlin in 1769. A large inheritance allowed him to spend much of his life exploring South America, especially the Orinoco River basin of Venezuela. Educated in both the sciences and the humanities, Humboldt wrote many books, including a three-volume work entitled Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinocitial Regions of the Americas, completed in 1834. Charles Darwin called Humboldt "the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived," and he is considered to be one of the founders of modern geography. He died in 1859 while working on the fifth volume of an ambitious survey of human knowledge entitled Kosmos, which was published posthumously.

Heading for the hills

It seemed sacrilegious to leave Taxco without visiting a silver workshop, so the next day I climbed into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to Spratling's former ranch in Taxco El Viejo (Old Taxco) a few miles south of town. My guidebook informed me that the Rancho Spratling's workshops are now run by a group of Spratling's successors dedicated to upholding his high standards of workmanship. We followed the old road to Acapulco, which buses loaded with sunseekers used to careen down before the new superhighway opened. Once clear of Taxco's dusty outskirts, the car wound through hilly countryside with small farms and herds of grazing sheep. Soon we turned onto an unpaved driveway leading to the Rancho Spratling. At the locked gate, a guard appeared and told us that the ranch was closed for the day. He suggested that we try the nearby Los Castillo workshops a short distance back along the road to Taxco.

Putting this event down to the vicissitudes of travel, I asked the driver to follow the gatekeeper's advice. Fortunately, the entrance to the Los Castillo ranch was wide open, and we drove along a narrow track shaded by trees to a row of adobe buildings with tile roofs and brick trim. A friendly employee named Isais greeted us and offered to show me around. First stop on my tour was a softly lit showroom and store with silver bowls, pitchers, teapots, and trays arranged on long tables covered in sumptuous red felt. Silver masks inlaid with semiprecious stones hung on the walls, and jewelry awaited inspection on wooden shelves. The Castillo family got started in silverworking with Spratling. Don Antonio Castillo, who headed the family business until his death in 2000, was one of Spratling's most talented apprentices.

In an adjoining workshop, I watched silversmiths hammering copper and putting the finishing touches on elegant pitchers. Two artisans were attaching lapis lazuli and turquoise handles in the shape of birds and crocodiles to their creations. We then visited another area where the copper is silverplated electronically and polished by hand. Isais explained that it usually takes four full days to make one of the large pitchers. As I was leaving, he asked if I would like to photograph some finished pieces outdoors. He took a beautiful silver pitcher with a blue, parrot-shaped handle and placed it in a tree. Framing the shot in my camera's viewfinder, I marveled at how at-home the vessel looked perched among the branches.

On my last afternoon in Taxco, I huffed and puffed up circuitous streets and alleys to Guadalupe Church located on a hillside above town. The only traffic I encountered on my climb were Volkswagen Beetle taxicabs shuttling people up and down the precipitous slopes. The lookout in front of Guadalupe Church offered sweeping views of Taxco sprawling up mountainsides and dipping into ravines. Santa Prisca Church stood out among countless red roofs and whitewashed walls. The only signs of modernity were communication antennas reaching into the sky and the metal towers of Taxco's last remaining mine, which still yields some 175 pounds of silver per day.

Taking in the inspiring panorama before me, I realized how reluctant I was to leave Taxco. Over half a century ago, Spratling expressed similar sentiments. Before taking off on a solo flight to Alaska in his small airplane called El Nino, he confided to a friend that he couldn't bring himself "to face leaving Mexico." The U.S. Department of the Interior had contracted Spratling to train Alaskan Indians to design and make silver objects incorporating their traditional designs and indigenous materials; consequently, he had to fly to hundreds of remote Alaskan communities, where he visited native craftspeople. His description of his return to his beloved Taxco in 1949 echoed in my mind: "The Ni?o was at last circling the blue sky above Taxco. I watched the plane's shadow pass over the red roofs and green laurels. ... Back in the green hills of southern Mexico, I had left the violent winds, dark skies and cold drizzle of the northland and was back in the sun once more."

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