Did you know garnets come in many colours and are not always red? I think garnets are the most underrated precious stone and I can’t understand why. Even royal crowns are embedded with garnets! The green garnet is a gemstone that will make you fall off your chair when you see it. You wonder why the price tag isn’t reflecting the beauty you’re seeing and you’d be forgiven for thinking you are holding the world’s most prized emerald. The brilliance of colour and the clarity of the Tsavorite is unmatched in any other green gemstone.
The green garnets are Grossular Garnet and the variety Tsavorite was named by Harry Platt of Tiffany & Co for the area where it was discovered in 1967-1971 in the Tsavo Game Reserve in Kenya. Harry was a man who knew gemstone pedigrees and he immediately recognized the potential of what the British geologist Campbell R. Bridges had discovered. The Tsavorite is the world’s rarest garnet and the finest gemstones and purest greens are still only found in Kenya. Sometimes spelled ‘tsavolite’, it is known as The Rolls Royce of Green.
The verdant vibrant green represents life-giving force and the renewal of energy and vitality to the heart. In such a short time, the Tsavorite has become known as the gemstone that assists in recovery from emotional trauma and helps you discover the beauty within yourself. It is believed to be the gemstone of benevolence, healing, prosperity, vigour, and compassion. Tsavorite has been assigned as a talisman for new ideas, inspiration, and life goals. Tsavorite is exceptional for balancing the heart as a source of empathy and strength, encouraging letting go of sorrows and regrets, and embracing new life expansion and increases. It is the gemstone of hope and harmony.
When artists paint prophetically, green is used to symbolise new beginnings. It’s as though the colour embodies the essence of Spring, new growth, and restoration. A touch of verdant green in a painting deposits the life force. Van Gogh often combined the two greens, Viridian, known in France as vert émeraude, and true emerald-green, vert véronése. And an artist cannot think of ‘green’ without seeing the wild intense richness of Henri Rousseau’s garden paintings. Vasari Oil Paints produced “Rousseau Green” in honour of Rousseau’s exuberant, lush, pale olive green.
Green signifies creativity and abundance. It is the first mentioned colour in the Bible and is mentioned 44 times. Four is the number for creativity. There are more shades of green than any other colour on earth. It symbolizes growth and rejuvenation of life.
The minerals forming the colour in Tsavorite are the same as for the emerald: vanadium and chromium. Tsavorite has not been synthesized; its complex chemical and physical properties make it too difficult to reconstruct. The Tsavorite requires no treatments to enhance it and every stone is natural. It has a high refractive index which means wonderful brilliance and it is far less hindered by the inclusions that often impede Emeralds. Tsavorite is the highest priced garnet on the market today and gems with deep saturated pure green command the highest prices.
They are found in comparatively small sizes and any weighing over 2.50 carats is rare. Tsavorite is 200 times rarer than emerald. The largest crystal ever found weighed in uncut at 185 grams and produced the largest clean Tsavorite in the world of 325.14 carats. Tsavorites have displaced the emerald in the ‘big three’ of choice gemstones. The Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection received the Royal Butterfly brooch to commemorate its 100th anniversary. The Royal Butterfly is a three-dimensional objet d’art set with 2,318 sapphires, rubies, fancy-coloured diamonds, and tsavorite garnets weighing 77 carats.
The stunning cushion cut gemstone pictured is an example of the finest quality Tsavorite, weighing 3.08 carat and priced at $22,825.
The Tsavorite and Diamond ring pictured is handmade in platinum and set with eighteen brilliant cut diamonds in a halo (18 = .36ct) and two shoulder diamonds (2 = .20ct) Colour F/G, Clarity VS-SI1 with a matched pair of Half-Moon cut diamonds, 2 = 0.21ct F VS. The ring is priced at additional $4,000 (total incl gemstone $26,825).
