Kyanite

Item Description

Kyanites can be pretty dull and I have seen tables full of smaller specimens with a crystal or two (usually broken) in massive white quartz, but sometimes you get this gemmy quality, and rarely, the variety with a distinct dark blue stripe running down the middle of the crystals. You mostly see these so-called blue stripe kyanites as single crystals. Here is a large specimen with over a dozen of them, to 15 cm (6 inches!), embedded in the quartz in which they formed. The overall impact is huge, with so much blue shooting out in so many directions. It is one of the more impactful large kyanites I have seen around, and sometimes these good ones go for crazy money to the "decorative arts" and interior design worlds. Amazingly, nearly all crystals are terminated. The matrix is not overwhelming, at all, despite the size of the piece. Rather, the kyanite mostly envelops it and the white quartz in the interstices provides a welcome aesthetic contrast. The blue color is most accurate in the photo showing the specimen in a hand, I would say, and really quite a strong blue in person. This is a very large and dramatic specimen among several we handpicked from a large pocket that was at tucson. I had only 4 pieces from this pocket, selected for aesthetics and condition.