gems, corundum, history.1, Indian gemology, Indian mineralogy, history of gemology, history of mineralogy, diamond, , Indian lapidary

Sinkankas: This work is highly valued by historians and geographers for its rich and detailed descriptions of the regions visited by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier between 1631 and 1668, including the landscapes, cultures, and political figures he encountered during a time when dependable reports from the Near East and Asia were rare. While some have questioned the accuracy of his accounts, scholars such as William Crooke and Valentine Ball have largely defended Tavernier’s reliability, particularly when tested against modern research. In the realm of gemology, his observations have stood the test of time, especially regarding his dealings in large, high-quality gemstones—an area of expertise that reflects his success as a jeweler in Paris and his deliberate travels to acquire and sell precious stones to European royalty. His accounts are organized into five books on Turkey and Persia and three on India, the latter being of particular interest. Key chapters describe the jewels of the Great Mughal Aurangzeb, the diamond mines of India including Raolconda, the trade’s measurement systems, and details on colored gemstones, pearls, coral, amber, and medicinal materials. Tavernier is credited with the earliest descriptions of several legendary gems, including the Great Mogul, the Koh-i-Noor, and the Florentine diamonds. His “Tavernier Blue,” sold to the French royal house, is believed to be the origin of the Hope Diamond. Notably, his works include some of the earliest visual representations of famous diamonds and gemstones, with detailed engraved plates depicting these remarkable treasures, adding further historical and gemological value to his narrative.This work is highly valued by historians and geographers for its rich and detailed descriptions of the regions visited by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier between 1631 and 1668, including the landscapes, cultures, and political figures he encountered during a time when dependable reports from the Near East and Asia were rare. While some have questioned the accuracy of his accounts, scholars such as William Crooke and Valentine Ball have largely defended Tavernier’s reliability, particularly when tested against modern research. In the realm of gemology, his observations have stood the test of time, especially regarding his dealings in large, high-quality gemstones—an area of expertise that reflects his success as a jeweler in Paris and his deliberate travels to acquire and sell precious stones to European royalty. His accounts are organized into five books on Turkey and Persia and three on India, the latter being of particular interest. Key chapters describe the jewels of the Great Mughal Aurangzeb, the diamond mines of India including Raolconda, the trade’s measurement systems, and details on colored gemstones, pearls, coral, amber, and medicinal materials. Tavernier is credited with the earliest descriptions of several legendary gems, including the Great Mogul, the Koh-i-Noor, and the Florentine diamonds. His “Tavernier Blue,” sold to the French royal house, is believed to be the origin of the Hope Diamond. Notably, his works include some of the earliest visual representations of famous diamonds and gemstones, with detailed engraved plates depicting these remarkable treasures, adding further historical and gemological value to his narrative.

corundum, history.1, India.12, gems, Indian lapidary

Sinkankas: This work is highly valued by historians and geographers for its rich and detailed descriptions of the regions visited by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier between 1631 and 1668, including the landscapes, cultures, and political figures he encountered during a time when dependable reports from the Near East and Asia were rare. While some have questioned the accuracy of his accounts, scholars such as William Crooke and Valentine Ball have largely defended Tavernier’s reliability, particularly when tested against modern research. In the realm of gemology, his observations have stood the test of time, especially regarding his dealings in large, high-quality gemstones—an area of expertise that reflects his success as a jeweler in Paris and his deliberate travels to acquire and sell precious stones to European royalty. His accounts are organized into five books on Turkey and Persia and three on India, the latter being of particular interest. Key chapters describe the jewels of the Great Mughal Aurangzeb, the diamond mines of India including Raolconda, the trade’s measurement systems, and details on colored gemstones, pearls, coral, amber, and medicinal materials. Tavernier is credited with the earliest descriptions of several legendary gems, including the Great Mogul, the Koh-i-Noor, and the Florentine diamonds. His “Tavernier Blue,” sold to the French royal house, is believed to be the origin of the Hope Diamond. Notably, his works include some of the earliest visual representations of famous diamonds and gemstones, with detailed engraved plates depicting these remarkable treasures, adding further historical and gemological value to his narrative.This work is highly valued by historians and geographers for its rich and detailed descriptions of the regions visited by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier between 1631 and 1668, including the landscapes, cultures, and political figures he encountered during a time when dependable reports from the Near East and Asia were rare. While some have questioned the accuracy of his accounts, scholars such as William Crooke and Valentine Ball have largely defended Tavernier’s reliability, particularly when tested against modern research. In the realm of gemology, his observations have stood the test of time, especially regarding his dealings in large, high-quality gemstones—an area of expertise that reflects his success as a jeweler in Paris and his deliberate travels to acquire and sell precious stones to European royalty. His accounts are organized into five books on Turkey and Persia and three on India, the latter being of particular interest. Key chapters describe the jewels of the Great Mughal Aurangzeb, the diamond mines of India including Raolconda, the trade’s measurement systems, and details on colored gemstones, pearls, coral, amber, and medicinal materials. Tavernier is credited with the earliest descriptions of several legendary gems, including the Great Mogul, the Koh-i-Noor, and the Florentine diamonds. His “Tavernier Blue,” sold to the French royal house, is believed to be the origin of the Hope Diamond. Notably, his works include some of the earliest visual representations of famous diamonds and gemstones, with detailed engraved plates depicting these remarkable treasures, adding further historical and gemological value to his narrative.

gems, history of gemology, gem prices

Lewes Roberts’s The Merchants Map of Commerce is a comprehensive 17th-century handbook of international trade, describing the principal commercial cities, ports, markets, commodities, currencies, weights and measures, customs duties, and trading practices of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Intended as a practical guide for merchants, it provides detailed information on the movement and valuation of goods through contemporary trading networks. Of particular interest to gemologists are its references to diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, and other precious commodities, including their principal sources and markets and aspects of their trade and valuation. The work provides valuable evidence for the commercial routes by which gemstones circulated between Asian producing regions, Middle Eastern entrepôts, and European markets during the 17th century.

corundum, Portugal, gems, global tavels, trade, Thailand.12

A seventeenth-century English translation of Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinação, first published in Portuguese in 1614, recounting the author’s extensive travels and adventures across Asia during the sixteenth century. The work describes voyages through India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, combining personal narrative with accounts of regional geography, peoples, customs, religions, trade, warfare, and natural products. Of particular interest to gemological history are Pinto’s observations on Asian commerce and luxury goods, including precious stones and other valuable commodities encountered in the trading networks of South and Southeast Asia.

corundum, Madagascar.12, Madagascar History To 1810. [from old catalog], gems

Flacourt’s Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar is one of the earliest substantial European accounts of Madagascar, based largely on the author’s residence there as governor of the French settlement at Fort-Dauphin from 1648 to 1655. The work describes the island’s geography and regions, inhabitants and social customs, religion, material culture, fauna, flora and natural resources, followed by an account of the French colony and its relations and conflicts with the Malagasy population. Of particular gemological interest, Flacourt records the occurrence of precious stones in Madagascar, including topaz, aquamarine, emerald, ruby and sapphire, making the work an important early source for the history of Madagascar’s gem resources.

corundum, Thailand.12, gems

A travel narrative by Sir Thomas Herbert describing journeys through parts of Persia, India, the Middle East, and Africa during the early seventeenth century. Herbert combines firsthand observations with historical, geographical, ethnographic, and natural-history information on the regions he visited, including cities, peoples, customs, trade, plants, animals, and natural resources. Of particular gemological interest are his references to pearls, precious stones, mines, and luxury commodities encountered in Persia and India, making the work a useful early English source on the gem trade and material wealth of Asia.

gems, jade, Fischer-Book, early gemology, early mineralogy

Andrea Cesalpino’s De metallicis libri tres is a late sixteenth-century treatise on minerals, metals, stones, and related substances, organized into three books. Cesalpino attempts a systematic classification of mineral bodies according to their observable properties and modes of formation, discussing metals, metallic minerals, earths, salts, stones, and precious stones within an Aristotelian framework. He considers such characteristics as color, transparency, hardness, density, cleavage, and response to heat, together with the geological environments in which mineral substances occur. Precious and ornamental stones receive significant attention, including diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald, topaz, garnet, amethyst, opal, and others. The work is an important early contribution to systematic mineralogy, notable for its effort to classify minerals through physical characteristics and natural relationships rather than solely through their medicinal or magical properties.

gems general, corundum, history.1, gems

A poetic lapidary by the French Renaissance poet Rémy Belleau in which precious stones are treated through a mixture of mythology, natural history, symbolism, and imaginative verse. Belleau describes individual gems, their colors, origins, virtues, legends, and supposed magical or medicinal properties, drawing upon classical and medieval lapidary traditions while transforming them into literary compositions. The work is particularly important in the cultural history of gemstones for its fusion of contemporary gem lore with Renaissance poetry and its portrayal of precious stones as objects of beauty, symbolism, and supernatural power.

gems, China, Burma, Myanmar, early Chinese trade with Burma, ruby, spinel, sapphire, jade, fei cui

A geographical and ethnographic work by Tian Rucheng (田汝成) concerning the southern and southwestern borderlands of Ming China. Yanjiao Jiwen (炎徼紀聞) records information on the geography, peoples, customs, administration, warfare, and natural products of regions adjoining China, particularly areas corresponding to Guangxi, Yunnan, and neighboring Southeast Asia. Drawing on official information and contemporary reports, the work is an important Ming-period source for Chinese knowledge of the southern frontier and its peoples, trade, and resources. Sun Laichen: Volume 4 contains an account of Mengmi (Mong Mit) and Mengyang that describes the conflicts among the tusis (especially the rebellion of Luchuan and the Ming efforts to suppress it) and the effect the Ming eunuchs' demand for precious stones had on border region affairs. Prefaced in 1560. Also called the Xingbian Jiwen. Based on the Nanyuan Manlu.

corundum, treatments.6, gems

Vannoccio Biringuccio was the Siennese metallurgist and armament maker who wrote history's first clear, comprehensive work on metallurgy. First published in 1540, shortly after Biringuccio's death, The Pirotechnia is a lavishly illustrated volume that describes in detail the equipment and processes of sixteenth-century mining, smelting, and metalworking. For centuries, this famous work has been a standard reference in the field of metals and metallurgy. It is especially valuable today as a vital source of information on the state of technology in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The book first addresses the principal ores — gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and iron — and the making of steel and brass. It then introduces semiminerals, from quicksilver and sulphur to manganese and rock crystal, and describes the assaying and preparing of ores for smelting. Other topics include the making of alloys, the art of casting, methods of melting metals, and the making of fireworks. This edition of The Pirotechnia has been reprinted from the authoritative translation published by The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, and is complete with an historical introduction to Biringuccio and his work. It also contains reproductions of the 94 woodcuts from the original 1540 edition, which depict centuries-old technologies ranging from the recovery of mercury with a distilling bell to a machine for boring guns.