155g Volcano Agate Skull – natural work of art, summer-orange joy of life – 6.3 x 4.9 x 4.2 cm Skull- 155 g





Catawiki Buyer Protection
Your payment’s safe with us until you receive your object.View details
Trustpilot 4.4 | 142947 reviews
Rated Excellent on Trustpilot.
Volcano Agate skull formed from picrasite-like Volcano Achat, a natural mineral skull from China, weighing 155 g and measuring 6.3 × 4.9 × 4.2 cm, with orange summer tones on a pale grey ground and deep semi-translucent veins throughout.
Description from the seller
King Pyrrhus of Epirus, after whom the Pyrrhic victory is named to this day, is said to have owned a very special agate. Pliny the Elder reports that Apollo with the lyre and the nine Muses could be seen in it. No artist had cut them; nature alone had drawn them. Their markings flowed in such a way that each Muse even bore her own sign.
This skull is also such a work of art by nature, only it redraws its image with every viewing angle. Joyful summer tones in orange lie over a delicate, mouse-gray ground and grant it an almost innocent zest for life. Everywhere, however, veins run through it: deeply translucent agate bands, rust-red iron oxide lines, and black, curved drawings that lend wild motion to its visage. From no perspective is it ever identical to itself.
Agate forms when silicon-dioxide-rich solutions fill hollows and cracks in the rock layer by layer. The different veins tell of solutions that moved through the rock at different times, sometimes clear, sometimes iron-rich. The source region of the material traded as “Volcano Agate” is not uniformly documented in commerce.
Material: Volcano Agate – agate/chalcedony (cryptocrystalline quartz) with iron oxide veins
Origin: China
Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.9 x 4.2 cm
Weight: 155 g
Features: Orange summer tones on a delicate mouse-gray ground; deeply semi-transparent agate veins, rust-red iron oxide and black veins across the entire skull
Note: The blue glow effect in the detail shots does not occur under normal light and could not be reproduced even under UV light.
Seller's Story
King Pyrrhus of Epirus, after whom the Pyrrhic victory is named to this day, is said to have owned a very special agate. Pliny the Elder reports that Apollo with the lyre and the nine Muses could be seen in it. No artist had cut them; nature alone had drawn them. Their markings flowed in such a way that each Muse even bore her own sign.
This skull is also such a work of art by nature, only it redraws its image with every viewing angle. Joyful summer tones in orange lie over a delicate, mouse-gray ground and grant it an almost innocent zest for life. Everywhere, however, veins run through it: deeply translucent agate bands, rust-red iron oxide lines, and black, curved drawings that lend wild motion to its visage. From no perspective is it ever identical to itself.
Agate forms when silicon-dioxide-rich solutions fill hollows and cracks in the rock layer by layer. The different veins tell of solutions that moved through the rock at different times, sometimes clear, sometimes iron-rich. The source region of the material traded as “Volcano Agate” is not uniformly documented in commerce.
Material: Volcano Agate – agate/chalcedony (cryptocrystalline quartz) with iron oxide veins
Origin: China
Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.9 x 4.2 cm
Weight: 155 g
Features: Orange summer tones on a delicate mouse-gray ground; deeply semi-transparent agate veins, rust-red iron oxide and black veins across the entire skull
Note: The blue glow effect in the detail shots does not occur under normal light and could not be reproduced even under UV light.

