L is for LAPIS LAZULI. The Letter 'L' for 'Blogging from A to Z in April', Saturday, April 13th, 2013

L is for LAPIS LAZULI. The Letter 'L' for 'Blogging from A to Z in April', Saturday, April 13th, 2013. 

Lapis Lazuli has been used for art since ancient times in Mesopotamia by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians for seals and jewellery.  In the predynastic Egyptian and in ancient Mesopotamia, lapis artifacts can be found in great abundance, with many notable examples having been excavated at the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il. Here is a close-up of the lapis lazuli inlays in that statue. (Source)

Lapis Lazuli is a rock made up of several minerals: lazurite, sodalite. hauyne, calcite, and pyrite.  


 

Lapis Lazuli stones were pulverized and used as pigment for the colour ultramarine blue. Look at the blue turban in this portrait, The Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) painted by Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675). No other 17th-century artist used, in this most lavish way, the exorbitantly expensive pigment lapis lazuli, or natural ultramarine.

The best blue colour is found in the rocks from Afganistan, where Lapis Lazuli has been mined for 6000 years. But in modern times Lapis Lazuli mines has also been found in the Andes (near Ovalle, Chile), the Lake Baikal region of Russia; Siberia; Angola; Argentina; Burma; Pakistan; Canada; India; and in the USA in California and Colorado.

Marie Jonsson's source of inspiration

Visit Marie Jonsson's Etsy shop for 'Wearable History', mejjewelry.

Here's one of Marie's historically inspired necklaces.

Here are earrings, a pendant set and a beaded necklace with Lapis Lazuli gemstone beads, from Isolbel Robinson's Etsy shop, LillibetsUK:

 
And here is a silver pendant necklace that Anna Edwards of Noblegnome Jewelry has made with a layered gemstone that has lapis lazuli on the bottom and Gold Rutilated Quartz on top.

And here are lapis lazuli gemstone beads used to make these lovely Anglican prayer beads by Heather availablle in her Etsy shop, UnspokenElements. I will soon return to prayer beads later on in the alphabet, as I am curious about these functional pieces of jewellery. They are focus tools, counting-aids for prayer.

Heather has also made a number of mala prayer beads; here with some lapis lazuli stones. These are available in her Etsy shop, GoldenLotusMala.




My theme for A to Z is my favourite things that might show up in written stories, poems, paintings or jewellery. This is my list of subjects that I would like to work with.

 
Best wishes,
Anna











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Jenny
of 
Choice City Native