le leurre de cristaux – Lure of Crystals
The affluent strata of the society are well known for their love for
crystals in all its forms. Here is our listing of some of the largest, grandest
and most expensive creations in crystal, as objects or art and luxurious
interiors.
Rock Crystal Bath Tub
Baldi of Italy has the ultimate bathtub available for sale for anyone seeking a
bathing masterpiece. The Florentine company realizes, thanks to skilled
craftsmen, the tanks that are works of art to decorate your bathroom with a
unique touch. This tub is churned out from a solid piece of 100% the purest
white rock crystal from the Brazilian Amazon and then carved in to a monolithic
bathtub that is large enough for 3 people and is about as unique as you can get
since no two tubs are identical. It is guaranteed to last over 200 years and is
sure to be a jaw dropper. And the cost? This iridescent, jewel of a tub will set
you back about $780 thousand dollars as and could be purchased at Harrod's of
London. The tub was on display through July 2010 and shoppers caught a glimpse
of it at the Harrod's London Knightsbridge store display window. Decadence at
it's best! And yesI there was an lucky buyer whose identity was not revealed by
the store.
And the cost? This iridescent, jewel of a tub will set you back about $780 thousand dollars as and could be purchased at Harrod's of London. The tub was on display through July 2010 and shoppers caught a glimpse of it at the Harrod's London Knightsbridge store display window. Decadence at it's best! And yesI there was an lucky buyer whose identity was not revealed by the store.
The huge tub, 2 metres in length and 55cm in height was previously shown in Milan at I Saloni in April 2010. It is carved from a single enormous block of the purest white rock crystal, quarried in the Amazon region of Brazil. The block was discovered in 2006 when Paolo Baldi, father of the company's current CEO Luca Baldi, learned of the existence of this ten-ton block of flawless crystal and had it extracted and transported to Italy intact. It is very rare to find such extraordinery large Quartz peices.
This incredible bathtub is the second to be made from the immense block. The original was shown at Salone del Mobile in 2008 and immediately snapped up by a Russian business magnate (I have specificaly being requested not to reveal his identity.), but the tub featured in the Harrods window is by no means a replica of the first. Each is unique, though both were sculpted with diamond cuts and left partially rough to expose the natural beauty of the crystal.
Yes, that’s the daughter of world’s fourth richest man in Britain and Formula One racer Bernie Ecclestone, Tamara Ecclestone, who bought this luxurious piece for her $72 million house in London.
Confirming the news, Tamara Ecclestone who is not shy of shouting out about her expensive investment said "It’s costing £1 million because I’ve got to reinforce the floor and I’ve had to pay for everyone’s travel and the hauling back and polishing of the crystal. But I spend a lot of time in the bath so it’s worth it."
Tamara had sent a team to Amazon to collect crystals to be turned into a bathtub. She and her younger sister Petra Ecclestone are always in news for their wealthy investments. Tamara was spotted at her sister’s extravagant wedding as a maid-of-honor. The whole wedding was an affair of $7.7 million and the reception featured DJ David Guetta, Black Eyed Peas and many other celebrities.
Rock Crystal Basins
If you want an unadulterated pure crystal sink for your bathroom, then you seem
to be in luck. This isn’t encrusted with crystals, but actually set in rock
crystal! Crafted by High Touch the polish company is out with the most expensive
rock crystal sink ever, handcrafted using monoblock crystal. However, coming in
at nearly $50,000, it sounds like serious luxury stuff.
Creation Gems do make hand crafted carved sinks and bowls of solid quartz, amethyst and other precious stones. They cost around $1200 per piece. Following is the picture of Siddharth Gaur director of Creation Gems with two carved solid bowls of Amethyst and Rose Quartz. We make bigger pieces only on order.
Largest Crystal Skull in Quartz
Would you like to decorate your place with a massive crystal skull. Well! There re people who would love to do that allured by the supposed metaphysical benefits of a large crystal skull. This is the largest crystal Skull in the world and it is now up for sale. It is named "AKATOR",
The chances of ever seeing another crystal skull of this size are very slim,
because it requires an enormous block of high quality crystal many times larger
than the final carving. There are few carvers who could or would work with the
challenge of carving a crystal skull of this size, and it takes a master carver
to produce one of this fine quality. It took an 800kg rock of Brazillian Smoky
Quartz to carve this 144kg crystal skull. This is carved by the world famous Brazilian Artist carver Leandro, who is recognized as one of the best crystal skull carvers in the world.
Price: $100,000 start and will go to the person who pays the highest.
Most Exclusive and Expensive Quartz Cutlery
For over 35 years Harold Van Pelt has perfected the art of carving quartz and
agate stones. The Bowers Museum is proud to be the first to assemble a body of
Van Pelt`s work in an exhibition that highlights the remarkable beauty and
extraordinary skill of gemstone carving. Hundreds of hours go into each
multi-faceted, fluted, and textured vase, hollow container, sculpture and
vessel, many of which are accented with gold and semi-precious stones. Working
the stone down to paper-thin walls brings out the gorgeous natural quality and
colors of the agate and gives quartz the transparency of glass. Transformed by
one man’s vision and skill from a solid stone to an incredibly delicate work of
art, the gemstone carvings of Harold Van Pelt have to be seen to be
believed.These two peices on display in our page were infect never sold by the artist as he knew that he may not get such tranparent quartz peices again to work and may never be able to clear something as stunning. There discription is as follows:
Quartz Twin Vases by Harold Van Pelt: Rock crystal vases measuring 10 ½ in high × 3 in. in diameter at the top and 3 ½ in. at the base. Each vase has 96 facets. The tops of the covers are made of green and pink tourmalines. (Photo courtesy Bowers Museum)
Faceted Quartz Egg by Harold Van Pelt: 8½” h. This hollowed-out quartz egg contains 416 triangular facets and rests on a 363-carat aquamarine pedestal. Its walls are paper thin.
The same artist made many stunning carvings using agate. Here is a photo of
Agate Rhyton by Harold Van Pelt: carved agate drinking vessel with gold capped
nose with a hole to restrict the flow of liquid. And finally a chair made of Quartz Crystals
Most designers are familiar with Philippe
Starck. And of those, several are aware of his iconic chair, The Louis Ghost
Chair. Starck transformed the classic Louis XVI chair into a modern version with
his transparent design for Kartell in 2002. Israeli designer Uri Shapira
streched this concept to make this chair named "Crystallizing Philippe". This
chair was crystallised using lab grown gemstone quartz manufacturing technique
by an Israeli Company. . It took several months to induce quartz crystals to
grow on this chair. And the result is here for all to see.
It's dimentions are: H 90 cm X L 60 cm X W 60 cm. As of now only one such chair
has been made. It is promoted as a Limited Edition made to order master peice.
Uri Shapira is a promising new artist that has recently stepped out of the
academy. His aesthetic perspective comes from a contemporary dialog between
nature and man. Uri creates artificial crystals using the wonders of chemistry.
So even though, it is not entirely natural. It is an amazing creation.
