78g Tourmaline Quartz Skull – Raven Black

In 1881, the painter Kawanabe Kyōsai showed at the National Industrial Exhibition in Tokyo a single crow: a black bird on a bare branch, painted with a few strokes of ink. The painting was awarded, and Kyōsai asked for one hundred Yen, a sum unheard of at the time for a painting. In response to the public outcry, he supposedly remarked that the price did not apply to the crow, but to the decades of practice contained in every single stroke. The anecdote is still cited today as a symbol of that Japanese art, which, with the very least, fills the whole space. As such ink strokes, the raven-black tourmaline inclusions sit in this skull: self-assured, purposeful, without a superfluous stroke. In swarms they sweep across the brow and crown, as if ravens were gliding through a fog-drenched night. The cool, milky-white material in between makes it all the more still. This fog is real as well. Milky quartz owes its cloudiness to countless microscopically small liquid- and gas inclusions that were trapped as the crystal grew and scatter light. It is the same principle by which tiny water droplets in the air become fog. The black crystals inside are schorl, the iron-rich member of the tourmaline family. Material: tourmaline quartz – milky quartz with inclusions of black tourmaline (schorl) Origin: Brazil Dimensions: 4.8 x 3.5 x 3.1 cm Weight: 78 g Features: dense, swarm-like schorl inclusions across the brow and skull cap, extending partly into the nasal opening; milky-translucent quartz portions; occasional delicate yellow iron traces in the jaw area

Estimate:£0.84

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