Yearning for the Bezoar-Stone

At first glance one might wonder why is what appears to be an oak gall or a ball of red clay so elegantly enclosed in such rich gold? Examine this object more closely, and its peculiar organic nature becomes more apparent. This strange reddish sphere was once worth more than ten times the weight of the gold encircling it. This is a bezoar stone or guliga in Malay, a concretion found inside the organs of certain animals that was once thought to possess tremendous healing and apotropaic powers. Some four hundred years ago this bezoar was prised out of the belly of an animal before traveling thousands of kilometers from the Malay peninsula to the Dutch Republic. Mounted in Dutch-style gold filigree, it became a part of Willem I’s Koninklijk Kabinet van Zeldzaamheden, a rarity among rarities.

Over the centuries, much has been written about bezoar stones, but not much about the ways they were decorated and why. This bezoar and its holder also have something to tell us about the exchange of rarities between Asia and Europe and the production of jewelry during this period.