The Great Family of Aventurines - A Complete Comparative Guide to Benefits & Virtues in Lithotherapy

ADVENTURINE STORIES & LEGENDS

• The name aventurine comes from the homonymous glass, not the other way around. This material is made in a few Murano glassworks using secret methods. The tiny island of Murano is located north of Venice, Italy, and it is there that the glassmakers of Venice had to move in the 13th century, to avoid the fires which they caused in Venice... and better keep their secrets . It is said that the name "aventurinated glass" comes from the somewhat random arrangement ("per aventura") of the copper flakes mixed with the glass paste. Another version says that the first time, this glass was produced by chance, by a combination of circumstances, as is often the case with new inventions! A glassworker whose name is unknown, would have randomly dropped copper flakes or brass filings into the molten glass “ per aventura ”. Clumsiness or desire to innovate? No one knows, but the result is conclusive. The glass containing a constellation of scintillating particles achieved great success and became adventurine or aventurine , a specialty and monopoly of Venetian glass masters.

• Aventurine is found everywhere, it forms in magmatic and metamorphic rocks in multiform aggregates (nodules, stalactites, pebbles, etc.). The main places of extraction are in India (State of Tamil Nadu), Brazil (State of Minas Gerais), Russia (Urals and Siberia), Tanzania, Tibet, the United States (State of Vermont), in Central Europe (Bohemia, Silesia), in Spain, in Austria, and in France (Finistère).

Adventurescence

• This name is given to the shiny, glittery appearance produced by light reflecting in mineral or metallic inclusions. This term does not only apply to aventurine. Other minerals have this characteristic: for example, iolite or certain feldspars such as sunstone, notably that from Oregon (known as Oregon sunstone ), which is very clear and very colored with copper inclusions.
• Beautiful aventurines are rarely found and most of those offered for sale unfortunately have insufficient adventurine. Aventurines without any adventurescence are mostly brightly colored dyed crystals used for low cost jewelry. A wide range of colors definitely announces an artificial treatment!
• The misleading name “ Indian jade ” sometimes refers to green aventurine. Jade and amazonite are rarer so aventurine of the same color sometimes replaces them. Green aventurine vases, bowls and other small objects have a beautiful fresh, frosted appearance. Jewelers frequently cut aventurine into cabochons to reveal all the brilliant beauty of this semi-precious stone.

Etymology and meaning of the word “Aventurine”

• Aventurine derives from the word “adventure”, a term coming from the popular Latin adventura (“what must happen”), from the verb advenire (“to happen”, “to happen”). In old French, the word takes the meaning of “fate, destiny” (meaning which is still found in the phrase “good adventure”). Adventure is finally and also chance, a meaning that we find in the adverbial phrase “ adventure ” (if by chance, you go on an adventure, come what may!)
• Subsequently, we call all things dotted with small shiny dots “aventurinated” including natural things like aventurinated stone (pietra venturina).

• Some lean towards the opposite of this explanation: it could perhaps be the natural aventurine which gave its name to the artificial one. This version is unlikely because there is no trace of this name before. It is also possible that the master glassmakers invented the story in response to curious people too interested in their manufacturing secrets. Chance does things well and cannot be explained!
• In France, the first written trace of the stone called “aventurine” dates from 1686. We owe this testimony to a very famous lady of this century, Madame de Maintenon: “ I found that a rosary that I believed to be true what the nuns do was one of calambour and another of aventurine… ”.

Aventurine throughout History

Aventurine in the ancient world

• Coralleachate or coralloagate, a coral red precious stone dotted with small points of gold.
• The asteria or star stone, so called because “we see the figure of all the stars”, the most beautiful come from Egypt and Arabia, it is cut like opal.

• Sandaresus or sandastros , found in India and southern Arabia, religious stone of the Chaldeans, with an interior fire placed behind a transparent substance shining with stars which seem like drops of gold.
• On the other side of the seas, pre-Columbian civilizations have left some concrete testimonies and we can see at the British Museum in London, a famous statuette of the very ancient Olmec civilization. This curious character, about thirty centimeters tall, is made of green aventurine, stocky with a large human or animal head, it dates from 400 years BC

Aventurine in the Middle Ages

• Jean de Mandeville, explorer and naturalist, tells us about a stone which could well be medieval aventurine:
• “ Green stone tasted like drops of gold: this stone gives “many” goods to the one who wears it. It is good for people who are timid because it gives boldness, good sense and good demeanor, grace and honor… ” but it is also specified that this stone being a holy stone, lust must be avoided.

Adventure in modern times

• As we have seen, in the 17th century, stones with small shiny dots were called aventurines. The difference between the minerals is not yet well established. On the one hand there are stones, natural aventurine, and on the other hand artificial aventurine, this marvelous Venetian glass with golden particles.
• From this time, a third aventurine was very famous: Chinese and Japanese aventurine lacquer. This vegetable lacquer is obtained from latex from Asian softwood “lacquer tree”. On this lacquer, often black, flakes of mica, bronze or gold are blown.

• This very delicate art is very popular in France and the ships of the Compagnie des Indes bring a number of screens and delightful objects in aventurine lacquer. We tried to imitate these complex processes but having neither the trees nor the know-how, we created very beautiful varnishes (the famous Martin varnishes) with adventurous varieties which would contribute to the reputation of French cabinetmaking under Louis XV .
• In the 18th century, scholars looked into the fate of the aventurine stone. It is described as a kind of yellowish or yellow-brown gemstone with small dots of gold which gives it a lot of shine. Diderot in his great Encyclopedia defines it as shimmering and classifies it among precious stones “like agate, lapis and others”.
• In 1802, Nicolas Jolyclerc attributed the aventurine “label” to “feldspars dotted with small flakes”, he specified that the others, quartz aventurines, were “false (although natural)”.

• This division into two species, one true feldspar and the other a quartz pseudo-aventurine, persisted more or less throughout the 19th century. However, some mineralogists, such as Balthazar-George Sage, relate it to the quartz genera. Today aventurine is definitely a quartz and feldspar which does not belong to the same group can simply be aventurine.
• Russian craftsmen from Yekaterinburg carved an immense basin from a single block of ocher aventurine extracted on a peak in the Urals around 1830. This imposing work required several years of work, it measures 2.46 m in width and 1.46 m in height. It is displayed in the center of the Coat of Arms Hall of the magnificent Winter Palace of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

• Closer to us, under the dome of the Invalides in Paris, visitors from all nations, disturbed by the extreme solemnity of the place, circulate in silence around an impressive creation in red aventurine quartzite. The tomb of Napoleon I required twenty years of work before being definitively erected under the dome in 1861. The stone comes from Karelia, a Finnish region formerly a Russian territory. This choice was not unanimous, wouldn't the emperor have wanted a rock extracted from French soil?