6.1" Blue Chalcedony Hand Carved Crystal Skull

A skull worked in blue chalcedony. At 6.1 inches and 1918 g it wants a shelf of its own rather than a desk corner.

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.

The skull is the hardest test of a carver's eye, because everyone already knows what it should look like. The passages that take the longest are the ones you notice least: the transition from temple to cheekbone, and the way the teeth meet.

Item ID 5100039
Material 100% natural blue chalcedony
Size 6.1 × 4.9 × 3.7 in
Weight 1918 g