Tourmaline and Quartz Hand Carved Skull

This rare and unusual hand-made Skull hand-sculpted by artist Lee Downey is carved from Tourmaline and Quartz from Brazil. Tourmaline is a crystalline semi-precious stone. Tourmalines were used by chemists in the 19th century to polarize light by shining rays onto a cut and polished surface of the gem. Tourmaline is a durable mineral, distinguished by its three-sided prisms; no other common mineral has three sides.

Bi-colored and multicolored crystals—such as the one carved by Lee Downey for this detailed, lifelike Skull sculpture—reflect variations of chemistry during crystallization. The pink color in some tourmalines is the result of prolonged natural irradiation.