A freeform Lapis Lazuli Specimen
Size: approx. 26cm x 15.5cm x 8cm
Description: Lapis lazuli has been mined and prized for thousands of years for its intense blue colour. Although it can be found in various far-flung places around the world, in its purest form it only occurs in Afghanistan and Pakistan from where it was exported in ancient times to Egypt and Rome. Later, during the Renaissance, many of the greatest European painters acquired lapis and ground it to produce the deepest (and costliest) of blue pigments. Today large pieces of lapis lazuli are highly prized and many of the areas where it occurs are controlled by the Taliban making it difficult to acquire. Not only is the material rare but it is comparatively difficult to extract large unbroken lumps. In recent years it has become very popular with the Chinese who call it 'blue and gold stone' on account of the golden bands that often occur in this otherwise blue rock.