Decorative stones, 5 highly coveted minerals

Decorative stones, made of a single or mixture of minerals, with their eye-catching colors are often used to create fine objects such as vases, jewelry, boxes which are decorating the finest homes. Most of these stones are difficult to extract in large quantities and therefore are rarely used to create architecture elements which require a large amount of materials. Here is list of 5 of these minerals that have been highly coveted from the ancient times until now :

Jadeite :

« Jade » refers to several varieties of different minerals which are jadeite and actinolie-tremolite, the first one being the rarest and most precious of them. This colored mineral - being blue, green or white - has been extremely coveted by the oldest civilisation such as Olmec or Maya population who considered this material as even more precious than gold. After a long period of oversight, the ancient mines of Jadeite were rediscovered in the 1950s in Guatemala. In Asia, a region where this material enjoys a strong popularity, jadeite has been used first in China from the late 16th century until the 19th century, before it got replaced by the more popular nephrite jade which is softer and a little less dense. This region is not only a big “consumer” of this mineral but also one of its biggest producer, however the largest supply comes from Myanmar in Burma where it forms itself in high pressure and low temperature environnement.

Malachite :

The green and bright malachite is a material quite common which can be extracted in many locations around the globe, however it is often found in small block while large ones are much more rare.

This material started to be extracted for commercial purpose in the early 18th century in the Russia mountains (central Ural). It was first used to create extravagant jewellery pieces and also pigments for paints. Then, with the increase of production and discovery of larger blocks, bigger objets were created from this stone and sometimes architectural elements.

In 1836 a exceptionally big block of Malachite was discovered in Russia and was used to cover two huges columns located in St Isaac’s Cathedral. The rest of the large block was used to create the room known as « Malachite room » in the State of Hermitage, the czars winter Palace in St Petersburg.

At the end of the 1870s Malachited ceased to be extracted in Ural and since then other regions such as Arizona, Burra in South Australia, have become suppliers of this material to create decorative objects. Today the region of Katange in RDC (Africa) is known as the biggest source worldwide of Malachite.

St. *Isaac's Cathedral (*St Petersburg, Russia)

Sodalite :

Sodalite, dubbed « princess blue » is a material extracted from Canada in Ontario which is deeply linked with Royalty and have known a huge success thanks to the order by the British Royalty during almost a century.

Sodalite is usually an inconspicuous mineral but some sources of it has deep blue deposits which is the most sought after form of this mineral. The most famous and also first deposit of blue sodalite is calld the Princess mine near Bancroft in Ontario (Canada). The mine and overall this stone are named after Princess Mary of Teck who were the former Duchess of Cornwall and who discovered in 1901 this mineral while visiting Canada. She falled in love with this blue stone and after becoming Princess of Wales she made a large order of sodalite for the Brook house decoration in London’s Park Lane. This project led to the opening of new quarries from 1906.

Solidate is today extracted in other regions such as Bolivia, Brazil, Namibia for architectal purposes. Similar as they may seem, sodalite and lapis lazuli should not be confused. While lapis lazuli commoly has dark shade of blue and grains of metallic yellow pyrite, “Princess blue” is rained with pink or white natrolite.

Rolex Daytona
Ref. 116519
A rare white gold chronograph wristwatch with sodalite dial
Circa 2005
© Phillips Auction

Lapis Lazuli

Over the past 6000 years, the blue stone with its sparkling metallic gold stars called lapis lazuli has been fascinating humans. The blue mineral that compose mainly this stone is called lazurite.

It is sometimes speckled with white calcite and most of the time contains metallic gold pyrite. Even if its name originated in the medieval times, it has been considered as a magnificient stone since the antiquity.

For more than 6500 Lapis Lazuli has been extracted from the Kokcha Valley in Badakshshan in Afghanistan. It first caught the interest and was carried to the ancient Egyptiand and Mesopotamian civilisations and a few centuries later to the greek and romans populations. Even though this stone has also been extracted from Russia where it was exported mainly to Italy in order to create hard stone mosaics and various decorative elements, up to this day the deposits in Afghanistan are still the finest and largest in the world. Lapis Lazuli is not only used to create objects and decorative elements but was also powdered by artists to obtain a bright blue pigment for their paintings.

Grand-ducal workshops, Florence
Cosimo de' Medici (1519–1574), Duke of Florence and Grand Duke of Tuscany
ca. 1567–69
© MET Museum

Blue John

Blue John is a rare variety of fluorite that is transparent and transluscent with purplish/blue and colourless bands and also white or iron stained yellow traces. It is highly fragile and working with this material takes infinite caution and a lot of time.

It is so fragile that it is often impreganted with resin in order to inscrease its solidity. The origin of this material remains quite unknown, even though we now that is etractions started in the first half of the 18th century in carvens in Derbyshire (England). This highly coveted material is used to create various decorative elements such as panels, vases, urnes, jewelry and even fireplaces. Today this material is still extracted but in very small quantity and used to create mainly jewllery.