Jewelry Lovers

The interest of its gnarled banding, which unlike most other ornamental stones is not multicolored but patterned throughout in contrasting shades of light to dark green, has earned malachite many admirers. In ancient times it was likened to the innumerable green shades of mallow leaves. The spirited play of light and dark effects renders it an inexhaustible source of oscillating arched, bent, often twisted, even perfectly circular and concentric lines, curves, and stripes—designs suggesting a bird’s-eye view of the boundless primeval forests of its present main supplier, the Congo. The effortless ability to furnish ever-varying patterns whose exquisite harmony can be revealed by means of skillful cutting, originates from the special mode of formation of malachite, which occurs as a surface weathering product from the action of meteoric waters on deeper-lying copper ore lodes.

It is a hydrated copper carbonate and thus one of the few stones colored idiochromatically by copper. It is everywhere found in the uppermost horizon of copper ore deposits and forms thick opaque masses composed of tiny monoclinic crystallites. Although malachite, as a mineral, is common, the knolls which are so well suited to cutting, with their rounded, kidney-, grape-, or cone-shaped surface habits, have become rare. The colors, which fluctuate between emerald-green, spinach- green, dark leek-green, and blackish green, together with the alternation of light and dark layers in the concentric shells of its structure, create the magic of its artistic designs. Their charming visual effect is strikingly enhanced by the brilliant silky luster which it acquires on polishing. Extensive strata of large knolls and tabular outcrops in the Urals predestined malachite to become the decorative stone par excellence of Czarist Russia.

The columns of the ikonostasis in the world-famous Saint Isaac Cathedral in Leningrad are completely clad with malachite and lapis lazuli; the same applies to the walls of the Malachite Salon in the Winter Palace and the innumerable works of art, tabletops and richly carved vases in the Hermitage. Today malachite is found in scanty and constantly shrinking amounts only in Katanga (Congo), Rhodesia, southwest Africa, and Australia. The glossy green stone with its unusual shell-like patterns was said to make the speech of animals clearly audible. Thanks to its suitability for so many aspects of applied ornamental purposes, for carvings, and for mounting in jewelry, it enjoys great popularity everywhere.

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