80mm Blue Chalcedony Hand Carved Crystal Sphere

A mm sphere cut from a single block of blue chalcedony.

Chalcedony is quartz grown too finely to show any grain, so it takes a waxy lustre rather than a glassy one and light travels a few millimetres into the surface before it stops. The pale blue reads deeper wherever the stone is thickest and washes out over thin edges, which is why the form changes as you turn it against a window.

A sphere is the most unforgiving shape in stone: any deviation shows up as a flat spot under a moving light. It is also the form that reveals the most of the material's internal pattern, since the surface cuts the block in every direction.

Item ID 1100084
Material 100% natural blue chalcedony
Size see photographs
Weight 703 g