Malachite (Hefendehl Coll.)

Item Description

Here is a beautiful plate of bright green acicular (needle-like) Malachite crystals on a reddish Hematite-rich matrix from the Mashamba West Mine in the DRC. Most of the display face is covered in scintillating, bright green needles of Malachite in small sprays and tufts up to nearly one centimeter across. The sprays are nearly three-dimensional and are intergrown, yet still relatively distinct on the nearly flat fracture surface. There looks to be an earlier generation of darker green, finer-grained Malachite underneath the sprays that can be seen along the edges of the piece in places. Both generations of Malachite contrast well with the brown-red Hematite-bearing siliceous matrix. A lovely piece from the Hefendehl collection probably dating from finds at Mashamba West in the 1980s or 1990s.