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Quartz pendant Mexican Fire Agate rare gems (2021) Design by Alberto Thirion
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Original Artwork
Design,
Jewelry
- Dimensions Dimensions are available on request
- Categories Designs under $500
The total weight of the pendant, 3.4 grams
The end-to-end measurement, 26mm high
Chemical Formula: Silicon dioxide - SiO2
Crystal Structure: Hexagonal
Color: Brown with play of color
Hardness: 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale
Refractive Index: 1.530 to 1.540
Density: 2.59 to 2.67
Cleavage: None
Transparency: Translucent to opaque
Double Refraction or Birefringence: Up to 0.004
Luster: Waxy to dull
Fluorescence: Variable
What is Fire Agate?
Fire agate is a brown, microcrystalline quartz (chalcedony) which has a botryoidal (grape-like) growth form, and which contains layers of plate-like crystals of iron oxide (limonite) in various planes within it. The layers are small enough that light entering them forms interference colors known as “fire.” The iridescent colors of red, gold, green and rarely, blue-violet, result from interference between diffracted light rays traveling through and reflecting off of these thin layers. (We see the same effect when looking at the rainbow colors at the surface of an oily puddle of water; or in the “orient” created by the layers of nacre on the surface of pearl.) Looking at a fire agate is much like looking down into the burning embers of a fire, which is exactly how it got its name. The gem is thought to be formed when hot water saturated with colloidal silica and iron oxide invades cavities in country rock and begin to cool. Chalcedony with iron oxide begins to grow on any available surface (the iron oxide gives the basic brown color to the gem). As the solutions began to precipitate and grow layers of silica and iron oxide would be deposited depending on the relative level of those elements in solution and underlying conditions. These alternating silica and iron oxide layers (Schiller layers)) cause the brilliant fire in the gem. As iron oxide ran out in the solution colorless chalcedony continued to grow.
Definition-Schiller layers: One of a series of layers formed by sedimenting particles that exhibit bright colors in reflected light, because the layers are separated by approximately equal distances, with the distances being of the same order of magnitude as the wavelength of visible light. Also known as iridescent layer.
Fire agate is found only in the US Southwest —the land between Kingman, Arizona and Needles, California and around the Colorado River— and Mexico. It wasn’t sold commercially until after World War II.
Fire Agate is one of the most difficult opaque materials to cut properly. In order to best reveal the colors, the overlying layers of chalcedony must be very carefully removed from the botryoidal surface creating a freeform shape with a carved upper surface. Just a bit too much material removed kills the iridescence and too much left on dulls it. Such painstaking treatment requires substantially more time per piece by the lapidary, and tends to elevate cost. This type of fashioning also leads to a lack of calibrated pieces and has prevented the use of this gem in mass produced jewelry items. This, combined with the fact that it is found in so few locations, keeps it scarce and mostly unknown to the general public.
It is very long wearing and tough material which may be worn every day.
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My name is Alberto Thirion and they call me the most famous painter in the world, they say it as a joke, but I liked the nickname and I have taken it as a slogan.
The nickname or slogan was born as a logical consequence of a work entitled the death of the devil. This is the story in broad strokes, when I was still young I was exhibiting my work in the company of other fellow painters, among all the spectators who by the way this time there were many, a boy arrived who must have been rich, to whom they were going to buy a painting as a birthday present.
The boy's mother did not want to buy the painting, but the boy was armed that this was the painting he wanted, his mother told him that how he was going to hang that painting in his room that he was surely going to have very bad nightmares, etc. Since in the play the devil appears decapitated and bleeding, -and he watched the scene without participating in it- the boy threw himself on the ground and began to have a great tantrum, hitting the ground, etc., etc.
At the time that he said he is the most famous painter in the world, I already love her!!!, I love her!, he shouted!!! And he shouted other praises for the work that in his opinion were fair, with the desperate aim of convincing his mother, but she did not buy the work.
That's where my fellow artists took it from to give me that nickname, years later already with the vision that time gives when seeing things in perspective. I think they unconsciously. They identified with that child, who loved that painting so much. Then that painting was stolen from me, by a thief who also wanted it, I guess, but he didn't have the money to buy it, it comforts me to think that the work took him away, the thief.
- Nationality: MEXICO
- Date of birth : 1947
- Artistic domains:
- Groups: Contemporary Mexican Artists