Nineteeth-century cameo cuf­flinks of labrador dogs carved in Labradorite. Image from www.vicmart.com

Labradorite is one of my favorite min­er­als used in jew­elry. I was first intro­duced to it many years ago, while work­ing at Edith Weber & Asso­ciates. As Edith and I were pack­ing jew­elry for an upcom­ing show, she handed me an antique ring set with a devil’s head carved from Labradorite. The superb sculpt­ing of the gem and its “Labradores­cence,” which we rec­og­nize as iri­des­cence in lus­trous blues and greens, brought Lucifer’s face to life, almost, it seemed, from a light within. Since then I have been obsessed with this omi­nous gem. Labradorite was orig­i­nally dis­cov­ered dur­ing the nine­teenth cen­tury in coastal Labrador, a region of Atlantic Canada. It has also been mined in other coun­tries. Col­or­ful exam­ples are the most desir­able and this link illus­trates a wide vari­ety of lively specimens.

A fine exam­ple of period Labradorite jew­elry is rare, so the cuf­flinks pic­tured above are an unusual find.