In northern Italy, about 45 million years ago, some natural rock was subjected to enormous pressure metamorphosing it to jadeite, a very hard stone that polishes to  a beautiful green colour.

Between 5000 and 4000 BC neolithic people chose this stone with which to fashion axe heads, extracting it from a site on Monviso over 2000m above sea  level. Large boulders were split by fire and water to create pieces of workable size before they were honed down and eventually highly polished.  

The investment of time, labour and skill must have contributed to the value of these axes which were traded over huge distances throughout Europe, from the Atlantic coast to the Black Sea, as high status ritual objects. Two of these, which are depicted in the right of the picture, were discovered in the west of Ireland and now rest in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

While I was painting this picture, I was thinking of great stretches of time, the rhythms of erosion by the elements, the hewing and splitting of stone by man and the alchemy from deep within the earth which gives us a treasure of minerals.