Stand
Maker & role
Unknown, Maker
Production date
Late 19th Century
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Object detail
Title
Specimen marble disc / stand
Production place
Collection
Measurements
0 - Whole, H: 1.2 x Diam: 22.6cm (H: 12 x Diam: 226mm)
Production notes
Pietra Dure, mosaic work using semi-precious hardstones, was a traditional Grand Tour Italian acquisition Italian craft.
Signature & marks
None
Credit line
Gift, NSW Department of Planning and Environment, 1987
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Specimen marble disc / stand, of inset segments of excavated imperial Roman marble. Italian, c1860s.
Description
Flat, circular 'plate' or stand composed of 28 irregular pieces of multi-coloured stone (marbles) around a green and black stone circular centre piece. Inset into a black stone (marble? slate?) disc with a narrow outer rim.
A large number of popular and easily transported souvenirs available to tourists in Italy were made from solid pieces of marble – such as obelisks, vases or statuettes, or with polished pieces inset into slate or other stones – such as paperweights or boxes. For a classically educated tourist, marble souvenirs recalled the boast by Rome’s first Emperor, Augustus, that he "found it [the city of Rome] of brick, but left it of marble” [Suetonius, Life of Augustus in Lives of the Caesars, ch.29].
Ancient Roman buildings, especially Imperial structures such as palaces, baths and temples where originally heavily decorated in costly decorative stones (see for example a description of a bathhouse in Staius’ Silvae, I.V), and the ruins of these provided a ready source for the stones in later centuries, long after imports had ceased. \For example, decorative church pavements created in Rome by the Italian Cosmati family in the 12th and 13th centuries utilised ancient marbles that would otherwise be impossible to acquire. The distinctive style of their work gave their name – ‘Cosmati’ - to a genre of such work throughout Europe, including at Westminster Abbey, London.
The expansion of the Empire in the first century under Augustus and his Julio-Claudian heirs brought Egyptian quarries under direct Imperial control. The piece of distinctive maroon/purple stone seen in this example is porphyry, which was brought to Rome from the Mons Porphyrites ('purple mountain') quarries in eastern Egypt, some 50 kilometers west of modern Hurghada on the shore of the Red Sea. Because of its colour porphyry was used extensively in Imperial art and architecture – ‘purple’ being the colour long associated with the Imperial family. This specimen plate uses 28 irregular pieces of marble, which recalls the ‘crazy paving’ seen on countertops in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Other examples feature square sections, or carefully crafted pietra dura. This disc likely came with a key to the marbles used, and that it includes porphyry would indicate an Italian origin, in Rome, Florence or Naples.
A large number of popular and easily transported souvenirs available to tourists in Italy were made from solid pieces of marble – such as obelisks, vases or statuettes, or with polished pieces inset into slate or other stones – such as paperweights or boxes. For a classically educated tourist, marble souvenirs recalled the boast by Rome’s first Emperor, Augustus, that he "found it [the city of Rome] of brick, but left it of marble” [Suetonius, Life of Augustus in Lives of the Caesars, ch.29].
Ancient Roman buildings, especially Imperial structures such as palaces, baths and temples where originally heavily decorated in costly decorative stones (see for example a description of a bathhouse in Staius’ Silvae, I.V), and the ruins of these provided a ready source for the stones in later centuries, long after imports had ceased. \For example, decorative church pavements created in Rome by the Italian Cosmati family in the 12th and 13th centuries utilised ancient marbles that would otherwise be impossible to acquire. The distinctive style of their work gave their name – ‘Cosmati’ - to a genre of such work throughout Europe, including at Westminster Abbey, London.
The expansion of the Empire in the first century under Augustus and his Julio-Claudian heirs brought Egyptian quarries under direct Imperial control. The piece of distinctive maroon/purple stone seen in this example is porphyry, which was brought to Rome from the Mons Porphyrites ('purple mountain') quarries in eastern Egypt, some 50 kilometers west of modern Hurghada on the shore of the Red Sea. Because of its colour porphyry was used extensively in Imperial art and architecture – ‘purple’ being the colour long associated with the Imperial family. This specimen plate uses 28 irregular pieces of marble, which recalls the ‘crazy paving’ seen on countertops in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Other examples feature square sections, or carefully crafted pietra dura. This disc likely came with a key to the marbles used, and that it includes porphyry would indicate an Italian origin, in Rome, Florence or Naples.
Accession number
R86/39
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