Azurite with Malachite (superb locality specimen)

Item Description

This is unquestionably one of the most sculptural, high quality and visually appealing specimens of Azurite with Malachite that we've ever had to offer from the famous Bou Beker locality in Morocco. The piece is filled with cascading semi-"rose" groups comprising lustrous, deep midnight blue colored, bladed crystals of Azurite, which are complimented beautifully by the chatoyant, velvety green Malachite in select spots. The piece has an almost organic appearance, as it almost resembles some kind of plant life or even a dragon if you look at it in the right way. The piece is crystallized on the front and back and displays beautifully as you can see from the video. It's incredibly difficult to find showy cabinet sized specimens of this material, and this piece is notably damage-free (maybe a few tiny imperfections if you look closely), which makes it all the more desirable. These are much less common than the contemporary Azurite/Malachite specimens from the Milpillas Mine in Mexico, and by comparison, they were vastly outnumbered by the pieces from Tsumeb years ago, so I consider a piece like this to be rare in terms of the size, quality and scarcity on the market. I value this one between $6,000-$7,500 for all those reasons. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl (#337 MC), a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.