|
Lapis Lazuli Pendants
Lapis lazuli is a gemstone of the kind that might have come straight out of the Arabian Nights: a deep blue with golden
inclusions of pyrites which shimmer like little stars.
This opaque, deep blue gemstone has a grand past. It was among
the first gemstones to be worn as jewellery and worked on. At excavations in the ancient centres of culture around the Mediterranean,
archaeologists have again and again found among the grave furnishings decorative chains and figures made of lapis lazuli –
clear indications that the deep blue stone was already popular thousands of years ago among the people of Mesopotamia, Egypt,
Persia, Greece and Rome. It is said that the legendary city of Ur on the Euphrates plied a keen lapis lazuli trade as long
ago as the fourth millennium B.C., the material coming to the land of the two great rivers from the famous deposits in Afghanistan.
In other cultures, lapis lazuli was regarded as a holy stone. Particularly in the Middle East, it was thought to have magical
powers. Countless signet rings, scarabs and figures were wrought from the blue stone which Alexander the Great brought to
Europe. There, the colour was referred to as 'ultramarine', which means something like 'from beyond the sea'.
The euphonious name is composed from 'lapis', the Latin word for stone,
and 'azula', which comes from the Arabic and means blue. All right, so it's a blue gemstone - but what an incredible blue!
The worth of this stone to the world of art is immeasurable, for the ultramarine of the Old Masters is nothing other than
genuine lapis lazuli. Ground up into a powder and stirred up together with binding-agents, the marble-like gemstone can be
used to manufacture radiant blue watercolours, tempera or oil-paints. Before the year 1834, when it became possible to produce
this colour synthetically, the only ultramarine available was that valuable substance made from genuine lapis lazuli that
shines out at us from many works of art today. Many pictures of the Madonna, for example, were created using this paint. But
in those days, ultramarine blue was not only precious and so intense that its radiance outshone all other colours; it was
also very expensive. But unlike all other blue pigments, which tend to pale in the light, it has lost none of its radiance
to this very day. Nowadays, the blue pigment obtained from lapis lazuli is mainly used in restoration work and by collectors
of historical paints.
|
|
|
| Click on photo to enlarge in new window. |
|
Attractive 9x16 teardrop cabochon of bright blue Afghani material set in sterling silver.
|
|
|
