Vintage Zuni Alvina Quam Natural Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Sterling Earrings

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Vintage Zuni Alvina Quam Natural Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Sterling Earrings :
$225.00

This is a listing for a vintage pair of earrings hand wrought from sterling silver and high grade natural turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty mine in Arizona, closed for quite a few years. They were made and signed by Alvina Quam, daughter of famous Zuni artist Alice Quam. Alvina is acknowledged as a fine Zuni jewelry artist in her own right and they are stamped on the backs with her name and sterling.
The stones are of the highest grade of Sleeping Beauty with a brilliant high blue color and a wonderful organicquality which the artist created by deliberately leaving their surface in a stylized nugget shape with visible marks of carving along with the complex surface texture of their natural matrix. The natural turquoise is very hard and took an excellent polish. If you look closely at the photos you will see the beginnings of some slight greening in shade which natural turquoise acquires with age.
The earrings have a generous size that measures 7/8th of an inch in diameter and both together weigh a comfortable and sturdy 9 grams. I didn\'t photograph the earring nuts, but these will be included.
The artist mounted the stones in a tight serrated bezel and finished them with simplified carved accents that add a slight scallop to their outer contour. These are simply stunning earrings created with the very best turquoise by a truly gifted Zuni artist. Thank you for looking.