Crimson & Lemon & Emerald

Crimson is the ruby contrast — in the Colombian gem market and in high jewelry design, the deep vivid crimson of rubies (specifically Burmese rubies — Mogok Valley rubies — the most precious rubies, which are the most saturated vivid red gemstones available) has always been the primary foil for Colombian emeralds. The specific jewelry tradition of pairing the most vivid red gemstone (ruby or garnet) with the most vivid green gemstone (Colombian emerald) has roots in the Mughal jewelry tradition of India — where Colombian emeralds were the most prestigious gemstones from approximately 1590 CE (when the Spanish emerald trade first brought Colombian stones to the Mughal court) to the present. The most celebrated Mughal emerald jewelry: the Taj Mahal Emerald (now at the Natural History Museum, New York) and the emerald necklaces of the Iranian crown jewels (the Iranian treasury contains the largest Colombian emerald collection outside Colombia). The vivid crimson of the ruby-and-emerald combination is the most celebrated and most formally significant jewel pairing in the South Asian jewelry tradition. Lemon is the matrix — the vivid pale lemon-yellow of the calcite and pyrite matrix (the surrounding mineral material) in which Colombian emeralds form. Colombian emeralds grow in veins of calcite-rich hydrothermal fluid within black shale and carbonaceous limestone — the surrounding matrix is often white-to-pale-yellow calcite, sometimes with bright pyrite crystals (pyrite is iron sulfide with a vivid metallic yellow appearance — specifically, raw pyrite from Muzo mines has been described as 'fool's gold' for its intensely vivid yellow metallic luster). The specific lemon-yellow of the rough emerald matrix creates the specific color environment in which Colombian emeralds are first seen — vivid jewel-green crystals emerging from pale lemon-yellow calcite matrix. Emerald is the gem — the vivid jewel-quality green of the Colombian emerald (beryl — Be₃Al₂(SiO₃)₆ — colored by chromium and vanadium impurities; it is precisely the chromium content — the same element that creates the red of rubies — that creates the specific vivid slightly-warm-shifted green that makes Colombian emeralds identifiable). The specific Colombian emerald green (#50C878 approximates the most celebrated Colombian emerald color) is warmer and more luminous than Zambian emeralds (bluer, darker) or Brazilian emeralds (yellower, lighter) — the Colombian emerald is considered to occupy the ideal position in the green spectrum: vivid without being either too blue or too yellow, and luminous without being either too dark or too pale.