Natural
Emerald

Emerald is the green variety of beryl, colored by traces of chromium and sometimes vanadium — elements that produce greens ranging from cool bluish tones to warm, saturated grass green. Prized since antiquity, emerald was Cleopatra's favorite gemstone, and the mines of ancient Egypt were worked for over a thousand years before being lost to the desert.

Today, the finest emeralds come from Colombia — particularly the legendary Muzo, Chivor, and Coscuez mines — where the stones are formed in sedimentary rock rather than the metamorphic deposits typical elsewhere. Colombian emeralds are celebrated for their pure, warm green with minimal blue. Exceptional stones also come from Zambia, Brazil, and Afghanistan, each source producing its own distinctive character.

Natural emeralds almost always contain inclusions — tiny internal features the trade calls jardin, the French word for garden. Far from being flaws, these are the fingerprint of a genuine stone and one of the surest ways to distinguish a natural emerald from a synthetic. A flawless emerald is rarer than a flawless diamond.

At Hemmingmoore's, every emerald we offer is natural and genuine — never synthetic, never misrepresented. We carry loose natural emeralds in a range of cuts and sizes, from individual collector stones to matched sets. If you want a real emerald, we have it.