onyx
The most common uses include fireplaces surrounds, worktops, bath panelling, bar tops and sink bases.
Also, as onyx is partially translucent it is widely used with lighting or backlighting to enhance its natural beauty and intensity of its colour. Please browse through our Verona Stone Fair Gallery to see wonderful examples of backlit onyx installations. Onyx is not meant to be cleaned with abrasive or ammonia based cleaner as using such types can cause discoloration of the stone.
Onyx the Most Beautiful Natural Stone
With an innumerable amount of precious and finely polish stone specimens, it is sometimes confusing and frustrating to stone lovers everywhere to ponder the question; “Which natural stone is the most beautiful?” This question is not easily answered because of the multitude of very beautiful looking natural stones, but, perhaps the single stone that rises above all of the others is the cryptocrystalline form of quartz, also known as Onyx. This is a stone that, even in its unrefined stage is unique, intriguing, and beautiful. Refined and carved forms of this stone have been used in everything from jewellery to currency since the golden age of the Greeks and Romans. These classical civilizations that prized beauty and elegance over nearly anything else, found that this unique black stone was something more than just a rock found on the side of the road, but something worthy of recognition.
So many things that the Greeks and Romans held as treasures and beautiful concepts have spilled into current western culture and remain to be thought of as beautiful. Thus, it is natural to believe that these golden civilizations who knew nothing if not beauty, also knew which stone was the most beautiful natural stone. During one time of the Greek’s usage of this stone, it was even used to make coin-like bits to be traded with for other items at market. They were used as some of the highest values of currency that the lower classes would use. The upper classes would forgo using it as currency and simply place the bits into jewellery to make them more ornamental and appealing to the eye.
Onyx, unlike many other stones that are used for jewellery, is naturally black, but is often polished deeply to get the natural colour to show more vibrant. For many other stones used in jewellery, the colours are added or augmented to make a specific effect or shade rather than using an amplified version of the natural colour.
The polishing process is also much less intense than it is for most rocks. The actual black, crystalline part of the stone is relatively hard, but the material around the crystalline black onyx material is quite soft, making it easy to strip away and polish the harder surface of the centre stone. This is another reason why onyx is so much more beautiful than most other natural stones; just because it requires less effort to bring its full beauty to its maximum potential. Many stones require nearly twice the time that it takes to make this black stone into its maximum potential.
This stone has been used for generations, in nearly all civilizations that find it naturally, as a means of creating unique and beautiful jewelry for all classes of people. Because onyx is not found very frequently, and when it is it is only in limited supplies unlike its cousin, quartz, it has also become very desirable by stone collectors and jewellery collectors alike. In the days of the Roman Empire’s height, it was also often used to create small figurines and trinkets to be used as ornamentation and display in some of the higher-classed homes. Many of these sculptures are still in some museums around the world, being displayed as some of the most beautiful works of ingenuity and art fashioned out of the most beautiful natural stone in the world. Most of these sculptures were made primarily out of the refined version of this black stone, but the unrefined version is nearly as desirable because of its unique make up and naturally beautiful appearance in several different shades of stone.
The natural form of this stone is normally a deep shade of black, though tinted by the quartz that surrounds it to make it appear to have a different colour. However, in some parts of the world, there is a variation of this stone that actually has a deep shade of red rather than the traditional black colour. These stones are rarer; than but still as beautiful as their black cousins. Because of the different types and shades of colour that onyx can be found in, there is no end to the different kinds of jewellery that can be formed from this, the most beautiful natural stone.
