Few weeks ago I prepared a post about emeralds:
http://blog.bitcomet.com/svetlana/post_23047/
Emerald gets its name from the Greek word - "smarados" which is further derived from the French word "esmeralde", all of which essentially stand for the color green. One of the most ancient gemstones known to mankind, the emerald has been treasured for at least 4,000 years by different cultures the world over. The ancient scriptures of the Hindu Religion, the Vedas, eulogized these precious gems for their mental and physical healing properties. In Islamic religion, emeralds are sanctified.
In my post there was a bit of information about one of the most famous emerald of our days, the Mogul emerald.
I decided that this one emerald deserves to have it's own post.
The Mogul Emerald is one of the largest emeralds in the world. The rectangular cut tablet, which dates back to 1695, weighs 217.80 carats and is about 10 cm high.
The emerald was auctioned off at Christie's of London for $2.2 million to an anonymous buyer in 2001.
The emerald was discovered in Colombia, possibly by Spanish conquistadors, and found its way to India for cutting. One side is inscribed with Islamic prayers and the other is engraved with opulent flower ornaments.
This emerald was most likely carved, rather than faceted, because of the natural inclusions, the shape of the original beryl crystal, or it might also have been the preferred style at the time. The floral motif carving is believed to be of the Indian Mogul style. The Mogul Empire was the imperial power that ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from the early-16th to mid-19th centuries.
The emerald is thought to have come from the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb --the last of the great Mogul rulers, who controlled much of India.
By now you might have guessed that the Moguls were big spenders—if not history’s biggest, then certainly among the top 10. Typical of their spare-no-expense approach to living was the Taj Mahal, built by the most lavish of all Mogul emperors, Shah Jahan (1592-1666) between 1631 and 1653 as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal (1592-1631).
Although Jahan’s father Jehangir (1569-1627) was a lover of opulence, his appetite for material splendor was no match for his son’s, especially in the realm of gems, the supreme acquisitive passion shared by the two. That’s saying a lot since, according to a 1622 account of Mogul court life by Edward Terry, an English chaplain, assigned the East India Company trade delegation to India in 1617, Jahangir was the “greatest and richest master of precious stones that inhabits the whole earth.”
By this standard the scion evidently possessed enough gems to be master of the galaxy.
In his chronicle of travels through Mogul India in 1640, Sebastien Manrique, an Augustinian friar from Portugal, describes a banquet at which Jahan was so entranced by stones given him as a gift that nothing—not even two near-naked dancing girls sent in as an after-dinner finale—could catch his eye.
Like any connoisseur, Jahan played favorites among his gem interests, as did his son, Aurangzeb (1618-1707), who overthrew him in 1658. All of which brings us to the subject of emeralds, the gem used for a unique form of engraving, which provides one of the most lasting artistic and cultural legacies of the Mogul period.
Throughout the Koran and other early Islamic literature, the color of paradise is likened to that of emeralds—a rich, verdant green. Given such spiritual associations, fine emerald was bound to be one of the most desirable trade commodities throughout the vast stretches of the Moslem world whenever it could be found (which, prior to 1520, was mostly Egypt). No place else were there more potential patrons for this beryl than in Mogul India where Moslem rulers reigned in luxury so prodigal that it has rarely been rivaled.
No one knows how many Colombian emeralds were engraved in the royal workshops of Mogul India. Many of these stones wound up in the private treasuries of Hindu rajas, Jain princes and Moslem sultans as the Mogul empire began to crumble in the 18th century and its riches were traded, sold or stolen.
Then when India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, many local rulers lost the power to tax their subjects. To keep their extravagant lifestyles going, many of India’s titled elite put some of their finer Mogul emeralds on the market for sale. Unfortunately, most of the gem dealers to whom these inscribed emeralds were offered had little or no understanding of their historic or aesthetic value. Rather, they regarded them as pieces of rough and bid for them based on their estimated yields of cut stones. Such insensitivity may be responsible for the destruction of hundreds of Mogul emeralds.
“It is only in the last 20 years,” says Islamic jewelry expert Derek Content, “that these pieces have been appreciated for what they are.”
Now considered among the most regal relics of Moslem and Indian history, fine Mogul emeralds can increasingly command hundreds of thousands of dollars as connoisseurs worldwide vie for ownership. In 1989, for instance, a Cartier brooch made in 1930 for the late Agha Khan III that featured a 142.40-carat Mogul emerald fetched $613,000 at a Christie’s sale in Geneva.
