You can see why you might be concerned about losing your marbles when they are as magnificent as this selection All things bright and beautiful
BEING Italian, the term “pietra dura” sounds much more exciting than its translation into English: literally “hard rock”. And no, it’s not another term for the music played by heavy metal bands. It’s more exotic than that, too.
The term relates specifically to the industry of embellishing furniture and works of art with thin, highly polished inlaid pieces of semiprecious minerals, hardstones and coloured marble, which developed in Florence in the 14th century.
In fact, the practice is even older than that, having developed from mosaics, a common feature in Roman buildings. The move from small, square, coloured clay tiles, called tesserae, to pieces of hardstones specially cut to shape, led to a whole range of new possibilities.
The idea soon spread to Persia and then to India, where perhaps the most impressive piece of decorative stonework was created: the Taj Mahal, which is decorated both inside and out with inlaid pietra dura decorations. The construction took 22 years and left its legacy in the form of Agra’s continued decorative stone industry, where pietra dura tourist trinkets sell like hot cakes today.
The industry in Florence flourished in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, encouraged by the Medici Duke Francesco I (1541-1587) who commissioned several leading painters to produce pictures that could be translated into pietra dura panels.
His successor, Ferdinando I of Tuscany (1549-1609) founded a workshop specially equipped to produce and assemble the intricately sliced and shaped stones, its workforce producing many pieces for the Medici family, notably for its chapel and crypt.
The industry soon grew further, with the city’s stonemason craftsmen creating intricate, life-like inlaid coloured patterns and pictures, which were used to decorate table tops and wall panels. Done with such care and precision, some rivalled paintings of the period and have survived because of their virtually indestructible longevity.
Most commonly used hardstones were agate, quartzes, chalcedony, jasper, granite, porphyry and petrified woods, giving the craftsman artist all the colours and shading needed to achieve the same realism as with brush and oil paint.
In the 19th century, Naples became a centre of excellence for pietra dura, demand being driven by Grand Tour tourists – the aristocracy and landed classes of Europe – keen to take home show-off souvenirs for their town houses and country estates.
Table tops were particularly prized, which can be seen in several British stately homes, often supported by tables of the most rudimentary design, some of them made up for the purpose by the estate carpenter.
Door and cabinet door panels, jardinières, garden ornaments, fountains and benches can all be found, while smaller, more portable items include medallions, cameos, and wall plaques.
As travel became more accessible to wealthy Victorians, demand for pietra dura works of art led to British craftsmen attempting to cash in on the appeal. This led to the development of a number of important centres in Britain, notably in Derbyshire, where so-called “black marble” quarried in Ashford-in-theWater had all the right qualities.
Except that Ashford marble is not marble at all. In fact, it is a form of dark limestone, impregnated naturally with bitumen which, when polished, changes from a dull grey to a lustrous black.
In 1580, Bess of Hardwick, Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, used Ashford marble to build a chimneypiece in the great chamber at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire.
Her great-great-grandson, the 4th Earl of Devonshire, used the marble when he rebuilt Chatsworth House a century later and it can still be seen in the present house when the 6th Earl installed huge doorways in the new wing he built in the 1830s.
Far more interesting, however, is the Chatsworth collection of decorative Ashford marble, which is said to have inspired Queen Victoria to form a collection of her own.
The water-driven Ashford marble mill was founded in 1748 on the banks of the River Wye, opposite the quarry just outside the Derbyshire village of Arrock.
Slabs of the stone were cut by hand and ground smooth by waterpowered machines to be used in the construction industry, the only decoration being etching and engraving on the polished surfaces.
However, in 1835, William Adam of Matlock took up an idea suggested by the then Duke of Devonshire to try to emulate the inlaid Florentine marble pietra dura he had seen while he had made the Grand Tour.
Using local coloured marble and other stones from quarries around Ashbrook and subsequently abroad, local artists were employed to design intricate and charming floral patterns to enhance the black marble.
Roses, pansies, forget-me-nots, lily-of-the-valley, harebells, birds and butterflies and more all feature in the decoration.
They were created by homeworkers whose job it was to glue the various coloured stones into the prechiselled holes worked into the marble surfaces.
The slabs were then returned to the mill for a final polish and crafted into ornaments such as inkstands, candlesticks, snuff and cigarette boxes, which were snapped up eagerly by tourists to Derbyshire.
Displays at the Great Exhibition in 1851 propelled the popularity of Ashford marble and Queen Victoria became a collector when, following Prince Albert’s death, she created a vogue for black clothing, jewellery and ornaments.
Demand began to wane when coloured glass was used to replace the coloured inlays and the move away from black ornaments following Victoria’s death in 1901 saw the mill’s eventual closure in the 1930s.
Examples turn up fairly often in salerooms and can be had for prices ranging from £200 to £2,000 depending on size and complexity.