90g Picasso Jasper Skull – Altamira, Ochre Painter, Mea Culpa – 5.0 x 3.7 x 3.3 cm Skull- 90 g
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Description from the seller
In 1879, an eight-year-old girl in a cave near Santillana del Mar lifted her gaze to the ceiling and cried: “Mira, papá, bueyes!” – Look, Dad, oxen! Above her, bisons in red and black crowded together, painted with ochre and charcoal more than fourteen thousand years ago. Her father, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, brought the cave of Altamira to public attention, but scholars did not believe him. They said the images were too vibrant, too artful to have originated in the Stone Age, and he was accused of forgery. Sautuola died in 1888 without anyone giving him his due.
Even this skull is hard to believe that nature itself painted it. On a light, gray-speckled ground run dark, wavy lines like confident brushstrokes. One of them runs vertically across the forehead and bears small, oval inclusions like a pearl necklace. At the back of the head, sharply twisted bands swing in white, cream, and gray. Across everything, earthy iron oxide flows in rust and ochre, sometimes as a fine vein, sometimes as a broad stream over the right side of the skull.
This iron oxide came last. Iron-bearing water seeped through the finest cracks and pores, and where it met oxygen, the iron rusted. Thus it laid itself over the older patterns like a final glaze. It is the same material with which the bisons were painted in Altamira.
In 1902 Émile Cartailhac, one of the loudest doubters, published an essay entitled “Mea culpa d’un sceptique,” the confession of a skeptic. The pictures were real. Not a brush touched this skull either, only the earth itself.
Material: Picasso Jasper (trade name; not real jasper, but mostly marble-like rock) with a gray speckled ground, dark, wavy bands, sharply banded portions, and earthy iron oxide
Origin: Utah, USA
Dimensions: 5.0 x 3.7 x 3.3 cm
Weight: 90 g
Special features: light gray speckled ground with dark, wavy band lines, including a vertical over the forehead with small oval inclusions; sharply intertwined bands in white, cream, and gray, especially at the back of the head and the underside; abundant earthy iron oxide in rust and ochre tones, flowing over the other patterns, particularly on the right side of the skull and at the back of the head; fine, partly iron-oxide-tinted natural hairlines, including across the forehead and the left side of the skull; polished
Seller's Story
Ich lasse mich immer wieder von der Schönheit der Natur überraschen und berühren. Mineralien und Edelsteine empfinde ich als Verkörperung jener Perfektion und Harmonie, die allem Sein zugrunde liegt. In ihnen verdichtet sich die Essenz der Erde – kristallisiert für die Ewigkeit und doch in jedem Stück einzigartig.
Jedes Mineral, das ich anbiete, ist von mir persönlich ausgewählt. Nicht nach bloßem Glanz, sondern nach dem Gefühl von Wahrhaftigkeit, das es in mir hervorruft. So findet nur das seinen Weg in meine Hände – und weiter in Ihre –, was ich selbst als würdig empfinde, in seiner Schönheit weitergereicht zu werden.
In meinem Handeln leiten mich Ehrlichkeit, Sorgfalt und die Freude am Teilen dieser Schätze. Ich verstehe mich dabei weniger als Händler, sondern vielmehr als Vermittler zwischen der Natur und den Menschen, die bereit sind, ihre Geschenke mit Achtsamkeit anzunehmen.
In 1879, an eight-year-old girl in a cave near Santillana del Mar lifted her gaze to the ceiling and cried: “Mira, papá, bueyes!” – Look, Dad, oxen! Above her, bisons in red and black crowded together, painted with ochre and charcoal more than fourteen thousand years ago. Her father, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, brought the cave of Altamira to public attention, but scholars did not believe him. They said the images were too vibrant, too artful to have originated in the Stone Age, and he was accused of forgery. Sautuola died in 1888 without anyone giving him his due.
Even this skull is hard to believe that nature itself painted it. On a light, gray-speckled ground run dark, wavy lines like confident brushstrokes. One of them runs vertically across the forehead and bears small, oval inclusions like a pearl necklace. At the back of the head, sharply twisted bands swing in white, cream, and gray. Across everything, earthy iron oxide flows in rust and ochre, sometimes as a fine vein, sometimes as a broad stream over the right side of the skull.
This iron oxide came last. Iron-bearing water seeped through the finest cracks and pores, and where it met oxygen, the iron rusted. Thus it laid itself over the older patterns like a final glaze. It is the same material with which the bisons were painted in Altamira.
In 1902 Émile Cartailhac, one of the loudest doubters, published an essay entitled “Mea culpa d’un sceptique,” the confession of a skeptic. The pictures were real. Not a brush touched this skull either, only the earth itself.
Material: Picasso Jasper (trade name; not real jasper, but mostly marble-like rock) with a gray speckled ground, dark, wavy bands, sharply banded portions, and earthy iron oxide
Origin: Utah, USA
Dimensions: 5.0 x 3.7 x 3.3 cm
Weight: 90 g
Special features: light gray speckled ground with dark, wavy band lines, including a vertical over the forehead with small oval inclusions; sharply intertwined bands in white, cream, and gray, especially at the back of the head and the underside; abundant earthy iron oxide in rust and ochre tones, flowing over the other patterns, particularly on the right side of the skull and at the back of the head; fine, partly iron-oxide-tinted natural hairlines, including across the forehead and the left side of the skull; polished
Seller's Story
Ich lasse mich immer wieder von der Schönheit der Natur überraschen und berühren. Mineralien und Edelsteine empfinde ich als Verkörperung jener Perfektion und Harmonie, die allem Sein zugrunde liegt. In ihnen verdichtet sich die Essenz der Erde – kristallisiert für die Ewigkeit und doch in jedem Stück einzigartig.
Jedes Mineral, das ich anbiete, ist von mir persönlich ausgewählt. Nicht nach bloßem Glanz, sondern nach dem Gefühl von Wahrhaftigkeit, das es in mir hervorruft. So findet nur das seinen Weg in meine Hände – und weiter in Ihre –, was ich selbst als würdig empfinde, in seiner Schönheit weitergereicht zu werden.
In meinem Handeln leiten mich Ehrlichkeit, Sorgfalt und die Freude am Teilen dieser Schätze. Ich verstehe mich dabei weniger als Händler, sondern vielmehr als Vermittler zwischen der Natur und den Menschen, die bereit sind, ihre Geschenke mit Achtsamkeit anzunehmen.
Details
Main mineral
90g Picasso Jasper Skull – Altamira, Ochre Painter, Mea Culpa – 5.0 x 3.7 x 3.3 cm
Mineral form
Skull
Weight
90 g
Origin (region/city)
Utah
Country of origin
United States
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