Precious, p.15
Precious, page 15
This twist in the tale continues a history of fluctuating fortunes, extreme even by gemstone standards. Other gems have gone from popularity to obscurity, from a plaything of the rich and famous to the toast of the cheap and cheerful. But perhaps none has traveled from such a high as spinel enjoyed at the court of the Mughal emperors to the low it touched at the turn of the twentieth century. Certainly no other gemstone has been saddled with such an unfair reputation as spinel, in the rush by the early gemmologists to distinguish it from ruby, with seemingly no thought to why this alleged impostor had once been regarded as such a precious prize.
The spinel story may be one defined by confusion and misapprehension, but it is also revealing about the forces that variously propel gemstones to prominence and bring them crashing back to the earth from which they came. Like the diamond, spinel shows how gems are products of marketing as much as mineralogy. In the century when diamond was the beneficiary of one of history’s greatest advertising campaigns, spinel was suffering because its brand had become hollowed out, shorn of its former association with royal magnificence and fatally typecast as a symbol of fraud. And like every other gem, but perhaps to an even greater extent, spinel reveals how these stones are objects shaped by human aspiration. The most famous spinels have been stones onto which emperors have carved their names, with which rulers have sought to assert their legitimacy, and around which historians have woven often fanciful narratives. They are not just historical objects, but ones that have been used to shape and sometimes distort history.
While being used to tell the stories of their owners, the narratives of these stones have frequently become lost and confused in the process. Yet through that confusion, the fundamental truth of the spinel shines through—these are gems too big, too red, too eye-catching to miss. Like moths to a flame, the powerful have made use of them and the curious tried to make sense of them. The spinel may have been known by many names throughout its history and endured a roller-coaster ride of reputation, but its essential qualities have never really been extinguished. As several of the most famous crowns ever worn attest, when it comes to making a statement in stone, spinel is simply a gem like no other.
Skip Notes
*1 The Iranian art historian Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani shows how lāl was the etymological root in Persian for other reds, including lāle for the wild anemone flower.
*2 Much has been made of the historic mines of Kuh-i-Lal in Tajikistan in recent years; it has become the best known, but it is by no means the only spinel deposit in the area. Several mines are located in both Tajikistan and Afghanistan along the border with a few contenders for the original “special mountain” of Marco Polo.
*3 This is not as strange an idea as it may seem. The vibrant blue gem lapis lazuli, famously mined not too far away from Kuh-i-Lal in Sar-e-Sang, is a proven source of precious blue pigment.
*4 That the Black Prince’s Ruby is not engraved suggests it came to Europe relatively early, and may never have been owned by an Eastern royal dynasty.
*5 Aurangzeb had a particular need to stress legitimacy. He had fought a war of succession against his older brother, and after securing victory had him put to death and their father (Shah Jahan) imprisoned for the final eight years of his life. By carving his name onto the spinel already featuring those of his predecessors, he suggested a far cleaner succession than had actually been the case.
*6 The title referred to the astrological event in which Venus and Jupiter come so close to each other that they appear to collide, said to have occurred when Timur was born. Shah Jahan was not the only ruler to subsequently appropriate the label, with important consequences in the history of one famous spinel.
*7 In fact, other famous spinels outweigh the Timur, including Catherine the Great’s Ruby (398.72 carats) in the Great Imperial Crown of Russia, and the 500-carat Samarian Spinel that is part of the Iranian Crown Jewels.
*8 European taste at the time might also have favored faceted stones over the ubiquitous smooth cabochon form of the Mughal spinels. One exception was the Hope Spinel, owned by the famous gem collector Henry Philip Hope (of the eponymous blue diamond fame), a spectacular 50-carat square step-cut spinel from Badakhshan that showcased the brilliance that a beautifully cut spinel could exhibit: when it emerged onto the modern market in 2015 it duly set a world record, selling for just under $1.5 million.
*9 One of the gems I would always test on principle whenever it came in for valuation was light-blue aquamarine—frequently set in large cocktail rings of the 1930s and ’40s—in case it was a synthetic spinel.
7
Quartz
The Commoner Gem
The gem, if rarer, were a precious prize,
But now too common it neglected lies…
—Marbodus of Rennes (1035–1123), translation C. W. King (1870)
“Can I try it on?”
I could hardly believe my eyes, or contain my excitement. In the elegant home of a collector, with record-breaking Warhols and contemporary masterpieces on every wall, I should have realized that the vault would contain nothing less than world-class jewelry. But I had not expected to find what was laid out in front of me. There was no warning of what was to come, just the anonymous box clicked open and its startling contents silently revealed. The moment I saw the famous baubles of blue chalcedony, I knew what I had been brought here to see: a set that had been made for Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, wife of Edward VIII. I was looking at one of the most recognizable jewels of the twentieth century, crafted by one of its supreme designers, and fashioned for one of its most notorious style icons. It was not enough just to see the crown-shaped bracelets, their milky blue spheres topped off with sapphire and diamond accents, and the matching necklace with its floral centerpiece of huge petals of pastel blue chalcedony completed by a deep-blue burst of sapphire. I also wanted, immediately, to wear them.
It was one of those special moments in the jewelry trade, that rare feeling of holding perfection in your hand or glimpsing its physical form up close. When I started in the jewelry business I promised myself that the moment I lost my ability to be delighted by the beauty of gemstones would be the moment I left it. I have expressly held on to the raw excitement that the very best pieces provoke, a reminder that the greatest jewels should always inspire emotion and evoke passion.
The blue chalcedony that had stirred such strong feelings in me was an example of the contradiction that is quartz: a gem group that is formed from one of the earth’s most abundant materials, but that has also been crafted into some of the world’s most valuable and distinctive jewels. Blue chalcedony is just one variety of a gem that exists in a dizzying array of different colors and forms—from black onyx to colorless rock crystal, lemony-yellow citrine to purple amethyst and pastel-pink rose quartz, carnelian in its multiple shades of red and orange, simple brown sard, translucent chalcedonies in white, brown, and blue, and banded agates and sardonyx that could combine a mix of colors.
There are many more members besides of a family that stretches right across the color spectrum and is found in relative abundance all over the world. Quartz should be a material of little value: as silicon dioxide, it is made from the two materials that together comprise almost three-quarters of the earth’s crust. It is not a singular gemstone but a sprawling family of crystals stemming from a common source of one of the most plentiful compounds in existence. It can form almost anywhere, in multiple ways and incorporating numerous additional ingredients. Far from cheapening quartz, this ubiquity has been one of the secrets of its ageless appeal.
In the ancient world, quartzes were some of the first-found gem materials, better known and more widely discovered than many of their later-known alternatives. Archeological discoveries show that carnelian was being fashioned into beads for jewelry as early as 4500 b.c.[1] Whereas ancient civilizations might only have found gems like sapphire and emerald in small crystals, they were able to access quartz both in greater quantity and in larger sizes. Jewelry could be furnished extravagantly, and exactingly detailed designs created. Forms could be fashioned, elaborate images engraved, and whole scenes laid out: it was a medium for miniature sculpture in precious gems.
In addition, quartz’s extensive color palette made it appropriate for a wide range of symbolic uses, while its hard-wearing properties were ideal for carving and artistic uses beyond accent and decoration. Quartzes were available, they were colorful, and they were a craftsman’s best friend. From the earliest days of the jewelry trade, these characteristics helped make them into some of the most important gem materials for the ancient world’s most prominent civilizations—a striking signifier of wealth and power from ancient Egypt to the Roman Empire.
One early exponent was Queen Puabi, whose cylinder seal (found buried with her) suggests she may have been a female ruler of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia in her own right, during the First Dynasty of Ur that dates to the twenty-sixth and twenty-fifth centuries b.c. Her magnificent burial costume features extensive use of carnelian and agate as part of an ornate assemblage including a crown of golden leaves and flowers, multiple necklaces, and a magnificent cloak formed of dozens of strings of beads reaching from her shoulders down to her waist.[2]
Around a millennium later, carnelian was also being used as part of royal jewelry that would become history’s most famous discovery: the ornaments of Tutankhamun. His burial chamber, and the myriad treasures it contained, provides a window into the esteem in which quartz was held and the symbolic value it carried in the ancient world. Among the items discovered there in November 1922 by the archeologist Howard Carter were several pectoral ornaments, designed to be worn protectively across the chest of the dead in their journey into the next life. An extraordinary example is the scarab pectoral, a piece as stuffed with symbolism as it is jam-packed with gems.[3] In its center is the winged scarab,[*1] crowned with the all-seeing Eye of Horus, or Udjat, flanked by raised cobras that carry the sun on their heads, and fringed at the base with a line of lotus flowers. Both the scarab and the lotus were symbols of the sun, also representing rebirth of the dead, while the Udjat Eye and Uraeus were markers for protection and royalty. This feast of solar, royal, and funerary symbolism also conveys meaning in its use of gems: throughout the piece, the classic Egyptian combination of carnelian, lapis lazuli, and turquoise forms the primary color scheme. These locally—and regionally—sourced gems, a stunning visual counterpart to gold, were a symbolic grouping: the bright red of the sun, the deep blue of the heavens, and the ambiguous blue-green that represented rebirth. This was a classic combination for the Egyptians, also featuring on Tutankhamun’s death mask and many more pectoral ornaments, demonstrating how the Egyptians used red carnelian as one of their “Magic Triad” of symbolic stones. Another example of a significant quartz find from Tutankhamun’s tomb was a scarab bracelet decorated with an amethyst, one of the earliest-known uses of this transparent purple quartz, and the beginning of its enduring role as a sign of royalty, rulership, and riches.[*2]
The Egyptians were far from alone among ancient civilizations in embracing quartz as a gemstone of choice. Continuing the tradition of Greek gem engraving, the Romans in particular made use of quartz’s qualities as a canvas for carving, creating ambitious and extraordinary artworks from it. Their lapidaries took the art of glyptics to its apogee, both in intaglio (where the device was cut down into the gem) and in cameo (where the image or scene was carved in relief). Sardonyx—the brown- and white-banded variety of chalcedony—was especially apt for cameo work, if the artist was skilled enough to foresee the anomalies of the natural material and create a 3D tableau by carving correctly through its layers. A master gem engraver could work with as many as seven different variations of color layers, alternating from white to dark by cutting the stone to different depths.
At the height of this genre, during the age of Augustus (r. 27 b.c.–a.d. 14) and his heirs, the greatest artists of the era were commissioned to create detailed scenes for the leaders of the empire. Their notable victories in war, divine associations, and intended lines of succession were carved in relief from the stone, the figures rising up from its layers of smoky brown and milky white. This was a jewelry craft that utilized to full potential the qualities of the material: its attractive colors, its hard-wearing properties, and its availability as a broad canvas for this painstaking work. Large-scale cameos were important expressions of wealth and power, not least because of the cost of commissioning a lapidary to perform such complex and precarious work, where one mistake—a single chip or, worse, a break—would mean having to start all over again. At the other end of the scale, simpler cameo brooches, rings, and earrings in sardonyx were so prolific in some regions in the third century that they appear to have been mass-produced for the wealthy middle classes.[4]
Some of the most famous examples of these Roman power pieces were commissioned by the emperors themselves, notably the Gemma Augustea, a lavish two-layered cameo that depicted the first Roman emperor, Augustus, alongside a range of symbolic figures: from his two immediate heirs, Tiberius and Germanicus, to the goddess Roma, personification of Rome and protector of the empire, and other sacred figures representing the earth, oceans, and civilization. Depicted in bare-chested, godlike form, with the corona civica (an oak-leaf crown granted to those who had saved the lives of fellow citizens) being placed onto his head, Augustus appears as a figure of supreme earthly power and one with close divine connections.[5] It is an outstanding example of how quartz cameos were used as propaganda pieces in high Roman society, the sheer size and layering of the material allowing lapidaries to carve scenes packed with power play and allegory.
Augustus also featured on an even larger piece in the same tradition, which was created several decades later. The Grand Camée de France, which was most likely carved in the reign of either Tiberius or his successor-but-one Claudius, depicts Augustus in deified form, one of twenty-three figures who appear on this enormous sardonyx slab, including four other past and future Roman rulers.[6] This cameo was to enjoy an even more decorated history than the one it portrayed: owned variously by Byzantine emperors, French kings, and medieval popes, and ultimately by Louis XVI, who stashed it in what is now the national library of France to avoid it being looted during the French Revolution.
The quartz carving tradition so embraced by the Romans had practical as well as decorative uses. Similar techniques were used to produce intaglios for signet rings where images were engraved into stones such as jasper, carnelian, and amethyst. They also produced remarkable objets including the Tazza Farnese, a bowl of sardonyx with reliefs carved on both its interior and exterior and a true tour de force of ancient art. This much-discussed object has experienced an extraordinary journey through cultures and civilizations, prized by emperors and puzzled over by scholars who continue to dispute the purpose for which it was created. Likely originating at the court of either Cleopatra or the emperor Augustus, it was subsequently owned by the Vatican and then sold to Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1471, before eventually ending up in the ownership of the Farnese family, another noble house of Renaissance Italy.
The Tazza’s origins have been widely debated.[7] It is thought by some to have originated in Ptolemaic Egypt, as early as the third century b.c., the stone sourced from as far afield as India or Bulgaria. Others have dated it to the first century and the Pax Romana that began with the reign of Augustus in 27 b.c.—bringing an end to the civil war that had followed the death of Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic, at which point Rome’s trading networks became steadily more prevalent. The debate over provenance has led to disagreement about the identity of the seven deity figures depicted on the face of the bowl: an Egyptian planetary allegory, or a Roman celebration of imperial power in the reign of Augustus. Less ambiguous is the gorgon figure carved out of its base, the familiar Medusa symbol that featured widely in Roman jewelry and was used to ward off malevolent spirits by averting the evil eye. This device is best known today as the face of the fashion house Versace.
The Tazza, one of the most enduring quartz creations, brings to life the paradoxical nature of the stone: as practical as it is beautiful, a material that demands both to be admired from a distance and to be worked on at close quarters. It is gemmology’s blank canvas: where other stones are made into jewels, quartzes can be crafted into fully fledged works of art. The objects that result often have a functional as well as aesthetic purpose, and the Tazza was likely no exception. Scholars have speculated about its potential uses, with one suggestion being that it would have played a role in Roman religious ceremonies, as a container for wine to be spilled in a form of symbolic sacrifice, the downward face of Medusa on the bowl’s exterior serving to ward off unwanted presences.
That suggestion carries an interesting echo of something we know for certain about other quartz varieties: the association of amethyst with the grape and vine, and ancient ideas about alcohol and drunkenness. The word “amethyst” derives directly from the Greek ἀ-μέθυστος (not drunken). In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder explained that it was said that the name was derived from “it closely approaching the color of wine,” while simultaneously distancing himself from the extended idea: “charlatans falsely claim that these stones prevent drunkenness, and that this is how they got their name.”[8]
