Hello my turquoise people!
I recently purchased these watch tips from ebay for a rather fair price. They are unsigned but have that Effie style. I don’t believe them to be Effie C because of the style of the serpent head, but I have done some digging and have found a similar style signed by Viola, which is the last picture I have included.
Evenso, the head and tail imprints are a bit different.
Does anyone have any knowledge or thoughts they could input? Is anybody familiar with the name Viola Calavaza? Related to the well known Effie? Does this look like it could be her work even though it differs a wee bit? Copy cat? Value?
I would love to hear the opinions of some of you seasoned turquoise enthusiasts =)
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Alright, the more I dig, the more it seems to lean more to a Simplicio design. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Did Dan simplicio have any unsigned pieces?
There was a discussion on another site about Effie. It seems that quite a few of her relatives have made jewelry similar to her style @Bigbree43 will want to weigh in here I think.
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Oh gosh, I could ramble on about Effie all day long. To answer @Acutiestill, yes, Dan Simplicio had lots and lots of unsigned work. Juan Calavaza (Effie’s Husband) was Dan Simplicio’s nephew, and we see a lot of Dan’s style and inspiration in Juan’s work. Dan Simplicio did make snakes with textured heads (quite a few actually!) but I’m not confident in calling this one of Dan’s pieces. The bezels are really choppy and I don’t really associate that with his quality of work. I did find an identical pair that bears Juan Calavaza’s hallmark, without the textured snake head.
With an unsigned piece, you’re going to get a lot of different answers. The textured snake is really important here. My best guess is that you have an unsigned, Juan Calavaza attributed piece. As far as Viola Calavaza, that name sounds veryyy familiar and I think that might be one of Effie’s granddaughters? @AC was putting together a family tree of the Calavaza family, he might be able to tell you better than I who she is.
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I am going to go out on a limb here and say they are not related unless Viola is literally one of Effie’s daughters or a niece because in the Barton Wright book all of Effie’s daughters are starting to put out work in the early 70’s, same as Viola.
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