Unique historic Malachite Jewelry Box

Item Description

This antique, historic malachite box is something special, a lapidary object that enticed my own mineral-driven eye immediately for the amazing combination of natural beauty with man made lapidary art. The photos and video speak for themselves. This is an antique box carved in the late 1800s when the material was contemporary, and long in the private collection of Christian Weise of Munich (he also publishes the mineral magazine Lapis and was an early co-founder of the Munich show). The box is made from 6 sides, one bottom slice, and one top section of malachite that retains the original crystallized surface of the material - and this is quite rare for old Russian malachite! In fact, we have seen very few Russian malachites in any kind of crystallized form, as they were nearly all cut up and carved. The color is gorgeous, the natural top is eye catching; and while the box is nice...the history is an extra bonus. This is a historic mine and more info can be found in this wonderful article on MINDAT: https://www.mindat.org/article.php/185/The+Demidoff+Malachite+Mine%2C+Nizhne-Tagil%27skoye%2C+Russia. 521 grams in mass.