Rhodonite - Gemmy Cherry-Red Tabular Crystal, Morro da Mina, Brazil

Rhodonite from the Morro da Mina Mine at Conselheiro Lafaiete is one of those materials whose reputation rests almost entirely on colour, because sharp crystals from the deposit are genuinely scarce. The manganese skarn has produced great quantities of massive Rhodonite and cleavage fragments, but euhedral, partly gem crystals emerged in quantity only from the finds of the late 2000s, and good ones left the market quickly. This is a single free-standing crystal of that type, tabular, richly coloured, and translucent enough to glow. The architecture is simple and effective. A blocky tabular individual stands upright with a stepped profile, a lower square-shouldered plane on the left set against a taller, more steeply finished section on the right, the two divided by a sweeping arcuate boundary that reads almost like a growth plane crossing the face. The termination is uneven rather than textbook, canted and irregular, which gives the crystal a sculptural silhouette instead of the flat-topped look of a cleavage slab. The front face and both lateral edges are present as crystal surfaces; the back is contacted, as the notes record, which is entirely normal for material grown tight against skarn. Colour is the argument here. In reflected light the body is a deep cherry to carmine red, tending toward oxblood in the shadowed left portion and lightening to a dusty rose where the right-hand face carries a whitish surface film and fine striations. Backlit, the piece transforms completely: the mass lights up in saturated scarlet, with the thinner lower zone passing to orange and a pale golden core where the light concentrates. Internal veils and healed fractures appear as soft grey traces within the red rather than as disfiguring flaws. That combination of strong saturation with real transparency is precisely what separates the top Morro da Mina crystals from the opaque run of the deposit. Lustre is vitreous to slightly waxy on the principal faces, brightest along the cleaner left plane, softening where the striated right face scatters light. Turned under a directed beam the crystal alternates between an opaque, almost lacquered red and a lit interior, so it rewards both display styles. At 3.1 x 1.7 x 0.8 cm this is a miniature, and a small one, but Rhodonite of this species quality is judged by colour and crystallinity rather than bulk. Rhodonite has perfect cleavage in two directions and bruises easily at edges and terminations; the survival of intact front and side edges on a crystal this thin matters a great deal, and it is the reason clean examples remain difficult to source. Ex Grant Powell Collection. Held to a light, it reads as a small window of pure red.