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Opal is a paradoxical gemstone, and one of the most fascinating.It is a form of quartz, but is not a form of quartz.Opal itself has numerous varieties. It is the most colourful gemstone, but some forms are colourless. It can be very bright and beautiful, and it can be dull and dead. It is best known for its flashes of colour, but some varieties have no flashes of colour, and are still opals. It can be black, and it can be white. Its best known attribute, the brilliant flashes of many colours, are not called opalescence, but irridescence.
 

Opal as Muse

A beautiful opal called the orphanus was set in the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. It was described "as though pure white snow flashed and sparkled with the color of bright ruddy wine, and was overcome by this radiance." 

Napoleon gave Josephine a beautiful opal with brilliant red flashes called "The burning of Troy," making her his Helen.

Shakespeare found in the opal a symbol of shifting inconstancy, likening play of color to play of mind in one of the most apt uses of gemstone symbolism in literature. In Twelfth Night, he writes: "Now the melancholy God protect thee, and the tailor make thy garments of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is opal."

Queen Victoria loved opals and often gave them as wedding presents. She and her daughters created a fashion for wearing opal. Queen Victoria was one of the first to appreciate opals from an exciting new source: Australia.

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GEMSTONE

Ancient opal came from the mines near Cervenica, Hungary, in what is now Eastern Slovakia, Australia and Translucent green opal  in Tanzania.