Table Ashtray Four-Leaf Clover Malachite Stone and Sterling Silver Salimbeni

 Malachite is well known and fascinating: semi-precious stone that has always been
it is combined with silver or gold allowing the creation of objects of extreme beauty.
But what is malachite and how is it formed? Malachite is petrified wood in environments saturated with copper oxide.
This is what has happened to forests over the millennia which were located around large copper deposits located in Russia, Africa, the United States
United States, Chile and Australia.
This is why malachite can have different types of ribs, smoother and more elongated in the stem, more rounded and curled in the
root. For an interesting comparison think of Briar.
Once upon a time the extraction of malachite was a side activity compared to the main one of the
copper mining and was often done with sledgehammers and pickaxes.
This made it possible to extract large blocks which then reached us through trade in the hands of stonecutters who then in turn provided the goldsmith’s work.
Then over time the use of explosives for copper mining led to an excess crushing, so much so that malachite arrived on the market in the 80s
much smaller pieces.
To overcome this problem, we made dealswith the stone cutters immediately alerting us when a large piece arrived.
Often when a very important object was ordered, we produced it in several copies so that the delivery was always perfect.