3.03 ct Red Garnet-Rhodolite - Cushion

At 3.03 carats, this rhodolite garnet from Madagascar carries its red color through a cushion cut, measuring 8.6 x 8 x 5.4 mm.

Rhodolite sits between pyrope and almandine, with a raspberry note the eye reads as livelier than either parent species. Madagascar has produced an unusually wide range of gem species since the mid 1990s, and its garnets arrive in colors the older sources rarely matched. It is wholly untreated, its color finished by geology rather than by any furnace or enhancement. That is typical of garnet, one of the few gem families that reaches the market almost entirely untreated.

Its exact combination of color, cut, and origin is its own, the kind of center stone you choose on purpose and build a piece around. Hand-selected and photographed by Caveman Gems in good light, shown as honestly as a screen allows.