Vanadinite - Large Tabular Cherry-Maroon Crystals on Pale Matrix, Mibladen

A commanding cabinet-edge cluster of vanadinite from the celebrated Mibladen mining district of Morocco, composed of unusually large, sharply formed hexagonal tabular crystals stacked in stepped, interlocking parallel growth. The colour is exceptional and atypical for the locality: a deep cherry to maroon-brown saturation that warms to brilliant flashes of fiery orange and amber where light penetrates the thinner beveled terminations and crystal edges. Faces are mirror-bright with an intense resinous to adamantine lustre, and many show delicate stepped growth striations and crisp bevelled margins that catch the light with metallic-silver highlights. The crystals are perched in an aesthetic ascending arrangement upon a pale cream-buff matrix, whose subtle tone provides ideal contrast to the rich red-brown of the vanadinite. Reported free of damage to any of the principal crystals. Mibladen material of this crystal size, colour depth and gemminess is increasingly difficult to source, and this piece displays handsomely from multiple angles.