Stefano Ricci Dual Flame Lighter — Malachite / Gold

Stefano Ricci Dual Flame Lighter — Malachite / Gold

Malachite earned its place in the decorative arts through a simple and irresistible quality: the pattern on its surface could not be invented. The concentric rings and eye formations, ranging from pale celadon to a saturated forest green to near-black in the densest banding, are the stone's geological record — millions of years of copper-rich water depositing material in layers — and they vary in every piece. Craftsmen in Imperial Russia understood this. When the court chose Malachite for the Winter Palace's Malachite Room, they were choosing a material that made the same amount of wall space look different from every angle, at every hour, under every light source. Stefano Ricci brings that same material to the scale of a lighter and sets it in gold.

Malachite

The stone on this lighter is real Malachite, which means the banding pattern on your piece is not the same as the one in the photograph and not the same as any other piece in the collection. The greens range depending on the specific stone: some run from pale mint through emerald; others carry more of the near-black banding that gives the stone its most dramatic character. The surface is polished to a depth that catches the light and returns it differently as the lighter moves — a stone that is never quite static in a lit room.

Gold Finishing

Malachite and gold have a history. The combination appears in Egyptian jewelry, in Renaissance decorative arts, in the Russian Imperial collection, and in the reason is consistent: gold intensifies green rather than fighting it, and the green prevents the gold from appearing excessive. On this lighter the proportions are controlled — the stone is the visual event; the gold is what makes it legible.

Dual Flame

The lighter produces two flame types from a single instrument: a soft, controlled flame for cigarettes and a torch flame for cigars. Both are immediately available. The dual flame format is the standard for Stefano Ricci's lighter collection — a working tool built to the same standard as the stone that accompanies it.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.