Director's Blog

This page contains personal reviews by Siddharth Gaur – director, Creation Gems on the developments and latest trends from the word of Gem art and Interiors.

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.

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.

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.

Baldi of Florence, Italy Made a total of 3 large natural bath tubs from crystals collected from Amazon.  The Harrod’s one was the second. The first one was of same Amazon crystal and was sold at the 2008, Salone del Mobile fair in Idialy  in 2008 to a Russian buyer, who forked out $858,763 for this marvellous piece. The third peice was recently custom ordered by Tamara Ecclestone. She was so immressed by the earlier two that she made a special request to the company to try find such large Quartz rough. So in all 3 such huge bath sinks of Quartz were made. And we see a gradual increase in the selling price of each successive piece. The first one, created for Harrods was with a price tag of $790,310. The second piece which was bought by the Russian buyer went for $858,763. And Tamara Ecclestone paid one Million dollars for her piece.

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

Now this is something which is strictly reserved for the super rich with very very high taste. It is very difficult to craft Clear Quartz into beautiful jars and other objects of cutlery. And it is exceptionally expensive when the resultant piece is completely clear as completely transparent and flawless pieces of quartz are extremely rare in larger sizes.

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.

Solid Gemstone Bath Tubs

Amethyst Bath

Baldi of Florence, Italy, has released the ultimate luxury bathtub, made of precious purple amethyst and accented with 24 karat gold plated legs.  The amethyst bathtub retails for 95,000 Euros, or $121,200 in the United States today.  The company made matching tumbler, lotion dispenser, and soap dish.

Malachite Bath

If you fancy a bath shaped like a boat and only have £111,000 to spend!  Then the hand carved bath made from malachite with its own solid 24 carot gold clawed feet is for you. This Peice was displayed at the Italian Design Furniture Exhibition in Kuwait, 2010 and it was presented by Artecasa.

Now the World's Most Expensive Bath

The Dubai International Jewellery Week saw the sale of the world’s most expensive gemstone bathtub, setting the region's largest showcase of jewellery, gold, precious metals, diamonds and coloured stones.
Selling for a staggering Dh6.4 million ($1.74 million), the Le Grand Queen bathtub is created from a rare and precious Caijou gemstone that is renowned for its strong healing benefits. It is said to be mined from an extict volcano from Indonesia.
Reka Peresa, sales and marketing director, Caijou Group, said: “The Caijou gemstone bathtub is a unique luxury object, crafted out of one of the strongest healing stones in the world. Ancient Chinese, Arab and Egyptian civilizations knew of this stone’s beauty and its healing ability, having stored over 100 million years of energy from the earth and universe.” - Now that's some expensive metaphysics at work! We at creation gems do make articles of similer looking gem material which is a variety of Petrified wood. Caijou gemstone is not recoganised as an individual gemstone as of yet by any Gemological societ of the world. So it seams that much of it's value is because of it's claimed metaphysiacal properties.

World's Most Expensive Furniture

Have you ever wondered what the most expensive piece of furniture in the world is? At  $ 36.7 million US dollars, the "Badminton Cabinet" takes the honors!  It is a rare 18th century cabinet that was commissioned in 17 26 and took 6 years and 30 people to craft.  It is  made out of ebony wood and semi precious stones such as lapis lazuli, amethyst quartz, red and green jasper.   The new record-holder is Prince Hans-Adam II, head of state of  Liechtenstein, the principality between Switzerland and Austria. The cabinet was purchased for the family-owned Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna.

When this 18th century Florentine ebony chest - inlaid with amethyst quartz, agate, lapis lazuli and other stones – sold for US$36 million at a 2004 Christie’s auction, it broke its own record as the most expensive piece of furniture sold at auction.

The Badminton Cabinet, so named because it remained in Badminton, England, for over two centuries, had set the previous record in 1990 when Christie’s sold it to billionaire Barbara Piasecka Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson fortune) for US$16.59 million. Johnson put it up for sale in 2004, when it was bought by Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, who donated it to the Liechtenstein Museum in Austria. Now the same piece of gem furniture has broken a new record.

Ridiculously Bling!

Sometimes you have to ask yourself ...  is this cool or is this pimp?  Is this appropriate for my home or does it belong in a Vegas night club? Luxury does not have to mean shiny.  And luxury surely is not Swarovski encrusted anything.  Does anyone really need or want a pink Swarovski Bath tub or shiny toilet?  Even Liberaci, the "king of bling," would be scared of these items.
So before you run out and buy bling encrusted anything - do a mental check and take  a second look. All that glitters is not always gold.

Most Stunning Mineral Specimen for your Interior

This is one of the most beautiful mineral specimens ever found. And it is from Myanmar, Burma.This Magnificent Pink Tourmaline (Rubellite) Crystals with quartz and feldspar in matrix weighing ( 19 ) kilogram, the starting price Euro ( 5 ) million. The good news is that it has just recently been offered for sale. You can buy this in the bidding at Rangoon to be held recently.

Rich and fruity. Rubellite matrix from Let-Pan-Hla Mine, operated by UMEHL, to be exhibited at the sale this month. The crystals—about 150 in all—are 1–1.5 inches.  I have personaly being collecting mineral and gem spacimens and I assure you all that I have never seen something as alluring.  Such kind of pieces can only form in Primary pegmatite deposits. I would love to study the geology of the mines which yielded this beauty.