The Glow of Fire Opal
- Sasha Bravo
- Apr 24
- 2 min read
A two-tone combination of Platinum & 18K yellow gold, blending sophistication and warmth, a one-of-a-kind pendant with a specialty cut, honey body-tone Fire Opal with scintillating play-of color and speckled rays of Natural Cognac Diamonds.
Geared up for the desert Sun, this particular opal is one of the few from a selected parcel of rough that I had hand sorted for cutting. These pieces came back with me to Germany and were handed to a friend of ours, Florian, for specialty faceting. The table on this opal was cut larger to create a bigger window into the stone, no crown facets, just a single band all around. The reflections that you see are coming from the pavillion facets (bottom part of stone) I trusted his judgement with the cut, and it turned out to showcase the color beautifully!
Vibrantly warm, with body-tones of cherry red, honey, orange, a pale yellow and colorless, Fire Opals are the treasured Gem of Mexico.
Dating several hundred years and celebrated for ceremonial and ornamental use, the Fire Opal glows brightly tracing its roots back to the Aztecs & Mayan people of Mesoamerica.
Today, the gemstone continues to be mined through various locations throughout Mexico. One of the primary sources for high quality Fire opal is the town of Magdalena, in the state of Jalisco.
Created in a fiery, volcanic rich environment, amorphous silica gel along with water, solidify into a translucent to transparent gemstone. Some Opals have a single body color, while others display radiant flashes of color called
(Play-of-color) within the stone. A simple & light tumble polish brings out the smoothness of fire opals.
Top Left, a Cherry Red Fire Opal
(without Play of Color)
and a Honey Fire opal + Play-of-Color
(Set in Pendant above)
Top Right: Similar to 'Boulder Opal' from Queensland, Australia, which forms in it's host material of Ironstone,
The 'Canterra' is Mexico's varietal of an Opal in Matrix.
Cut in a cabachon shape, the earthy, light brown host material is called Rhyolite and provides a beautiful backdrop capturing the transparency and play of color in fire opal.
Bottom Right: The phenomenal 'Contraluz'
When you see strong display of fire appear in these particular opals, its quite magical and mysterious all at once, an optical dance of floating color. Contraluz, in Spanish means against the light. Often appearing colorless, they come to life through a direct light source.
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