Lush Glass Tanzanite

Middle English lush, possibly from lascious, lascivious — a word that drifted from sensual ripeness toward visual abundance. Used as a color word since the eighteenth century for the saturated greens of well-watered foliage and the deep saturated jewel tones of velvet upholstery. Used across the deep and bold buckets where the hue is simultaneously dark and vivid.

Old English glæs, glass. As a color modifier, glass implies a transparent-and-vitreous quality, the visual register of Murano-and-Bohemian-glass hand-blown-and-cut crystal-and-leaded-glass Venetian-and-Bohemian glass-and-crystal surfaces under Murano-and-Bohemian-glass workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to gloss and shine in usage.

A blue-violet variety of zoisite — discovered in 1967 in a single small area of northern Tanzania near Mount Kilimanjaro and marketed by Tiffany & Co. shortly after. The color refers to a faceted tanzanite cut to maximize its strong pleochroism: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted deep blue-purple with the gem's signature internal life. Cooler than amethyst, warmer than iolite, with the gem-trade specificity of a stone that occurs in exactly one place on Earth.