French Cafe/Occasional Table with Portasanta Breccia Marble Top c.1870

Exceptional French Cafe or Occasional Table with patinated cast iron base and Portasanta Breccia marble top with a patterned cast iron edging. c.1870.

‘Portasanta’ is the name given by the “scalpellini “stonecutters of Rome, to the marble that forms the jambs of the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, another place it can be seen is in the ‘Circus Agonalis’, the square in Rome now called the Piazza Navona, where it forms the fountain basins. Catalogued by Faustino Corsi, later to be discovered that it was originally quarried by the Ancient Greeks near Chora on the Greek island of Chios, the quarries closed during Byzantine times and their location was lost. In the late 19th century, the quarries were rediscovered by the great English marble hunter William Brindley.

The beautiful marble top of Portasanta from Chios is a fine-grained compact limestone breccia. The sample has combinations of pale pink, salmon-pink, dark red, and grey. They have white calcite-filled fractures and abundant stylolites (zigzag lines from when the stone was compacted during burial). The edge of the table is edges with finely detailed cast iron.

The tri-legged base in cast iron is delicately coloured with a time-worn smattering of coral peach paint.