MARBLE

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MARBLE

- Marble is frequently used to surface different pieces of furniture - commodes, secretaires, tables, consoles, pedestal tables. During the Renaissance, marble was applied to the facades of sculpted coffers. Louis XIV was a keen supporter of marble sculptors and by the reign of Louis XV the use of marble was particularly widespread. Under Louis XVI, the fashion was for sobriety and the marbles used were uniform whites and greys. With the Empire, blacks and greens were added and the cuts became more angular, distinguishing them from previous styles where rounded edges were broken by one or two grooves. The Restoration of Louis XVIII and Charles X saw colours become softer - lighter greys and whites became the fashion.
Louis Philippe and Napoléon III brought back black but the edges had moulding, "doucine" (a curve refined at the edges by two slight counter-curves) or grooves. In the Art Deco period, marble was often used in conjunction with wrought iron. In France the main marble quarries are in the Pyrenees, Brittany, Flanders and the Jura, each one having different characteristics. The frequently used "breccia" (brèches in French) are composed of fragments of rocks of several different colours: the "Brèche d'Alep" (Sarcolin quarry in the Pyrenees) has a yellow background and brown, reddish, grey and black fragments. The "Brèche violet" has fragments of violet next to white or brown. The "Sainte Anne des Pyrenees" is pale grey, the "Sainte Anne francais", from quarries in the north, is a deeper grey. "Campan melangé" (Pyrenees) has a pink background streaked with green and red. Red Campan was used for the Château de Versailles and was also called "Royal Red"; it is deep purple with some purplish-blue and pink, white and, more rarely, pale green streaks. The "Fleur de Pêcher" is pink with ochre and grey veins. The "Rouge de Languedoc" is rosy red mottled with pale grey and with wide white veins. From Belgian quarries came a red marble "Rance" which had large white and grey splashes sprinkled with small grey and pink fragments calles "rats' tails". "Royal Belge" is a more uniform deep red colour.

The Italian marbles prefered for furnishing are "Portor", black finely veined with grey and white and mottled with an orangey yellow and "Bleu Turquin" - greyish blue with black and white stria.

"Sainte-Anne des Pyrénées" grey marble

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- Gypsum alabaster, often called true alabaster, is a cheaper substitute for marble but also allows particular effects, such as transparency. Its fine grain and relative porosity make it a material much appreciated from as early as the 13th century. Painted, gilded or sculptured, over the years various different types of objects have been made from alabaster, vases and lamps in particular but also clocks and colonnettes.