Handcrafted Taxco Sterling Skull Ring, "Fair Catrina"

With flowers atop her skull, Catrina is gorgeous. Oscar Figueroa Escorcia creates this excellent cocktail ring from gleaming Taxco sterling silver, with oxidation enhancing the details. The skull tops a slender sterling band.

The original "La Calavera Catrina" was a zinc etching created by the artist José Guadalupe Posada in Mexico around 1910. Posada created the character, a female skeleton with an elegant hat, as a satirical portrait of Mexican natives who aspired to European style and denied their own heritage. The catrina has since become an emblem of Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration and a popular folk art subject.