Chlorite Quartz Crystal Mineral Display Specimen

Restrung using recently polished Mammuthus primigenius bone beads. 170 grams, 62 cm



Acquired on the UK art market before 2000. Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.

The mammoth lineage branched from the Asian elephant around 6 million years ago, and later on the Woolly Mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, evolved in eastern Siberia. Woolly mammoths, being slightly smaller than living African elephants, were foragers and ate grass, as well as small, nutritious flowering plants that flourished in the environment where they lived. They may also have used their curved tusks to dig through snow and eat plants that other foragers were unable to reach.

Comprising four rectangular sections of grey pink and black medium to coarse-grained biotite-quartz-plagioclase gneiss with polished upper face, each with wooden backing and one cracked. 233.7 kg total, 85 x 57.7 - 85 x 58 cm



Canadian Shield, Minnesota River Valley, Southwestern Minnesota, USA. with Phillips, New York, 3 June 1995, no.81. Private collection, Florida, acquired at the above sale. with Sotheby’s, New York, 28 April 2021, no.27 (est. $2,500–3,500).

The world’s oldest known rocks come from the Canadian Shield area of North America. Among the most ancient is the present material, Morton Gneiss at approximately 3.5 billion years old believed to be part of Earth’s first planetary crust. The swirls and layers are a result of metamorphism that incurred when the original volcanic rock was buried to tremendous depths.

Composed mainly of collared cylindrical bead interspersed with small glass beads; restrung. 33 grams, 39 cm



From the London, UK, art market in the 1990s.