Holding the object up to the light, Chatwin said it was made from some sort of desert opal. “It’s a wonderful colour,” he said. “Almost the colour of chartreuse.” A few weeks later, James Mollison, Director of the National Gallery of Australia, arrived at Jonathan Hope’s house to examine Indonesian textiles. Mollison took the knife from the table, looked at it closely, then announced his verdict. It was amazing, he said, what the Aborigines could make from an old bottle shard.
