The University of Richmond Museums opens Crystals: Minerals from the Collection, on view in the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, February 3 through December 5, 2021. Crystals have fascinated and been desired for millennia. What is it about crystals that has us so enamored? Both science and history converge to inform us about many of the extraordinary aspects of crystals. The exhibition introduces the science of crystallography and mineralogy, while also considering the historical significance of crystals in cultural practices aesthetics and ideologies.

Crystals: Minerals from the Collection features more than seventy crystal specimens selected for their color, form, and distinction. Presented in a multicolored arrangement, visitors will see some of the most rare and exquisite crystals in the University of Richmond Museums’ permanent collection, including pearly Mexican selenite, wine-red South African rhodochrosite, and deep green Brazilian emerald. Near-perfect cubes of Spanish pyrite and English fluorite contrast with clusters of clear Arkansas quartz and grey blades of Japanese stibnite. Feather-light clumps of white tincalconite stand distinct from hefty metallic cubes of galena.