Lapis Lazuli in Southwest Jewelry: The Blue That Isn't Turquoise
Lapis Lazuli in Southwest Jewelry: The Blue That Isn't Turquoise
Lapis is the newcomer that earned its place. It is not a Southwest stone and never pretended to be — it is imported from Afghanistan, Chile and Russia[1] — and it arrives in Native jewelry at a specific, datable moment. As lapidary tools improved and art-school training spread, jewelers made bold use of materials that had been exotic to the tradition: lapis lazuli, peridot, sodalite, sugilite and tourmaline[2]. Lapis is the one that stuck, because it does something turquoise cannot. Turquoise is a sky blue that goes green as it ages. Lapis is a night blue, flecked with pyrite, and it holds.
Lapis in the Masters' Hands
The stone tracks the arrival of fine-jewelry technique in Southwest work. Harvey Begay — who studied under the master jeweler Pierre Touraine in the late 1970s — moved between traditional and fine-art registers with equal ease, as comfortable setting diamonds or lapis as gold and turquoise, working by hand fabrication, lost-wax casting and tufa casting[3]. Ben Nighthorse builds sandcast and inlaid pieces in sterling and 18-karat gold, favoring lapis lazuli beside pink coral, malachite, sugilite and turquoise, and hiding additional fine work on the interiors[4]. Gress works lapis, sugilite and opal against sky-blue turquoise and rose coral[5].
Note the pattern in those three: every one of them is a maker who trained formally, works in gold as readily as silver, and treats stone selection as a design decision rather than an inheritance. That is the company lapis keeps.
Reading Lapis
The single most useful thing to know about lapis in this market is that its quality ladder has been inverted by fashion — and the reference literature says so outright. In the 1990s a variety called denim lapis was introduced: a denim-colored, faded, dyed tone of lower-grade lapis, created strictly as a fashion device to match jewelry to the color of denim clothing. It proved so successful that denim lapis, despite its inferior properties, is now more expensive and more sought after than the original stone[1].
Read that carefully before you buy. Denim lapis is not a fake and not a scandal — it is a real, disclosed, dyed commercial grade with a following. But you are paying a premium for the weaker material, and a seller should tell you which one is in the piece.
For fine lapis, look for even, saturated night blue, with pyrite flecking that reads as scattered gold rather than a solid seam, and little to no chalky white calcite. Rub-test a suspiciously uniform stone with acetone on a cotton swab in a hidden spot: dyed material can transfer color. And treat lapis gently — it is soft, and it does not belong in an ultrasonic cleaner.
A note on accuracy. We strive for accuracy, and this page is continuously updated with new information from the artists, their families, and the community. Corrections welcome.
Sources
- Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 148
- Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 33
- Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 62
- Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 171
- Encyclopedia of Native American Jewelry, p. 113
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