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A particularly striking and beautiful

Charles Loloma Hopi tufa-cast silver, gold and “Blue Lace” turquoise ring, c. 1975-85



Charles Loloma (1921-1991) is by any measure the 24 carat pure gold standard of modern Native American jewelry. And, in our view this gorgeous silver, gold and unusual turquoise ring is an especially pure and essential expression of his exalted work. It has all the hallmarks that distinguish his pieces; beautiful, harmonious, unique design, creative and superb metal smithing, marvelous and unique lapidary.


The ring’s shank is tufa-cast silver, very nicely textured. It has the ingenious slightly oval-shaped “Loloma shank” which allows the ring to fit a small range of finger sizes by virtue of its unique, twist-on, twist-off design. Atop the silver shank is a lovely, deep, very finely-serrated, smoothly finished and brightly polished gold bezel which holds the crown jewel,

a gorgeous, extremely eye-catching high-domed, hand-shaped “Blue Lace” turquoise stone; a unique and rare form in which lacy turquoise tendrils form inside the background host rock.


The term “Blue Lace” applies perfectly to these delicate blue tendrils that float so beautifully through the darker green background of the stone. Charles Loloma’s former jewelry apprentice and studio heir, Verma “Sonwai” Nequatewa, explained to us that Charles had particularly liked the unusual natural artistic appearance of this stone and had used

it in only a very few jewelry pieces such as this one because he was never able to obtain very much of it. Our longtime Arizona colleague, friend and “go-to” turquoise expert who is the current owner of the world-renowned Lone Mountain turquoise mine in Nevada had this to say about this stone:


Charles Loloma was well known for using the finest, most unique

stones and other precous materials in his jewelry pieces.


Charles Loloma always went to great lengths to seek out the finest and most artistically interesting stones and other materials and he was well known for paying premium prices to get them. Turquoise mine owners and turquoise and other stone brokers from around the country regularly came to Hopi to show and sell Charles their finest, most interesting stones, he was one of the most prominent customers for the rare old Lander Blue and Lone Mountain spiderweb turquoise as well as for the highest grades of many other stones and other high-quality materials such as red and pink coral, blue lapis lazuli, purple sugilite and charoite, black jet, various fossilized ivories, opals, jade, white sea shell, pearls and Mother of Pearl as well as precious and exotic woods such as black African ebony, deep-brown Sonoran Desert Ironwood and reddish-brown Cocobola wood. Notably, Loloma was the first Native American jewelry artist to make use of a number of these materials in his jewelry.


Loloma’s insistence on using only the finest and most unique stones and other beautiful materials started an artistic tradition his niece and studio heir, the distinguished contemporary Hopi jewelry artist, Verma “Sonwai” Nequatewa still carries on to this day in her work.


The “Blue Lace” turquoise stone in this ring was artistically and aesthetically interesting to Loloma, reminiscent of an aerial view of the rivers winding through the Southwestern desert canyon landscape as seen from above. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Charles would regularly take his two young apprentices, Verma Nequatewa and Eveli Sabatie up on flying trips around the region in his small plane to observe such views as inspiration for making jewelry pieces such as this ring.

At left, a modern day view of Charles Loloma’s former studio in Hotevilla, Arizona.

At right, Charles Loloma and his apprentice Verma Nequatewa at work in the studio, 1970.

Right photo source and © Martha H. Struever “Loloma, Beauty Is His Name”, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, 2005, pp.21

Charles Loloma (1921-1991)


Left, right and center photo source and © "Loloma: Beauty is His Name"

by Martha H. Struever, Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, 2005

“I would say it’s from Nevada.  It’s a very pretty stone! It reminds me of boulder turquoise….mainly host rock with veins of turquoise running through it.”


-American turquoise authority and mine owner,

Gene Waddell, Waddell Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

“If there is beauty in a piece of art, a person can absorb it and become more beautiful.”


-Charles Loloma

The overall design presentation of this ring may look fairly simple, but artistically and technically it is anything but. Rather, it is the distilled product of an extremely high degree of artistic and technical intelligence, creativity, experience and discipline. We are particularly taken with the architectural nature of the entire composition and the subtle, but delightful textural and color contrasts and visual tension between the slightly rougher texture of the sides of the ring's tufa cast silver shank and the smoothly polished silver shank surround and the brightly polished gold bezel all perfectly set off by the beautifully-matrixed, intensely-colored stone.


The ring measures a fairly small size 4 3/4 on a professional graduated ring sizer, but with its unique oval-shaped Loloma shank, it will fit fingers from sizes from 4 3/4 to 5 1/2. The ring is in excellent original condition with a very slight amount of age-appropriate wear, but no damages at all, fairly remarkable for a wearable jewelry piece of 45-50 years of age.

The ring is properly and very beautifully signed "Loloma" in his striking hand-engraved 11-stroke signature on the interior side of the silver shank.


To us, this ring, though not a monumental object, is nevertheless an ultimate and unadulterated artistic expression of precious metal and stone and an eloquent reminder of the fascinating possibilities of the beauty of human adornment in

the right hands and of course, on the right hand.



SOLD