Hessonite and Diopside

Unknown Owner

Help improve this recordNo owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

This is a beautifully-composed and very colorful classic combination specimen from the Alpine valleys of Italy, featuring gemmy Diopside crystals with contrasting Hessonite garnets a combination noted in books from 200 years ago and still famous today. The miniature consists of a glassy and transparent to translucent, lovely light green Diopside crystals clustered together in aesthetic grouping associated with dozens of sparkling, gemmy, cinnamon-hued Hessonite garnets. The Diopside crystals are elongate prisms from 0.5 to 3.4 cm in length all of which are translucent with gemmy tips on most. The Diopside crystals are perfectly terminated with the exception of one on the backside that has a contact. The Hessonites are perfect and bright trapezohedrons from 1 to 4 mm size with a rich red-brown cinnamon color and provide great diversity and contrast to the green Diopside. Unusually fine, and aesthetic, this was in the long-ago competitive miniatures collection of Irv Brown of San Diego.