Emerald
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EMERALD
A velvety, diaphanous green stone which belongs to the beryl family, the emerald has been worshiped for over three thousand years.
Emeralds were once mined in the Egyptian Arabian desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea.
However, the most beautiful specimens come from Colombia, whose mines have yielded such splendors as the emeralds of the Indian maharajahs, the Ottoman sultans, the shahs of Persia and those worn by Empress Eugénie.
In the 1920s and 1930s Cartier produced sumptuous emerald parures for maharajahs, the wife of banker J.P. Morgan, Princess Aga Khan and Barbara Hutton (using emeralds that had once belonged to Maria Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir).
Cartier commemorated its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 1997 with the creation of an exceptional necklace in the form of a snake, featuring two extraordinary pear-shaped emeralds weighing 205 and 206 carats.The emerald often features different kinds of inclusion. Often the emerald is clouded with inclusions. These are not classified as faults, but are evidence as to the genuineness of the stone.
They are termed as fluid inclusions, several of which form the jardin (or garden) of the emerald. A dark green emerald with inclusions is considered to be more valuable than a flawless pale green specimen. Silicate of aluminum and beryllium.Hardness: 7.5. Birthstone of the month of May.
Its planet is the Moon. Symbol of hope, appeasement, fertility. Colombia, Brazil, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe,Tanzania, Madagascar. The most famous emerald mines are in Colombia (Muzo, Chivor, Pena Blanca, Coscuez) and Brazil (Itabira, Goias).
