Alabaster lamp
photo by Styrous®
Some of the wonderful "Turkish Delights" (link below) I have in my collections are composed of an almost magical stone called alabaster.
Alabaster is a mineral and a soft rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word alabaster. In archaeology, the term alabaster includes objects and artefacts made from two different minerals: (i) the fine-grained, massive type of gypsum, and (ii) the fine-grained, banded type of calcite.
The English word "alabaster" was borrowed from Old French alabastre, in turn derived from Latin alabaster, and that from Greek ἀλάβαστρος (alábastros) or ἀλάβαστος (alábastos). The Greek words denoted a vase of alabaster.
The name may be derived further from ancient Egyptian a-labaste, which refers to vessels of the Egyptian goddess Bast.
She was represented as a lioness and frequently depicted as such in
figures placed atop these alabaster vessels. Ancient Roman authors Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy wrote that the stone used for ointment jars called alabastra came from a region of Egypt known as Alabastron or Alabastrites.
The purest alabaster is a snow-white material of fine uniform grain, but it often is associated with an oxide of iron, which produces brown clouding and veining in the stone.
Alabaster
is mined and then sold in blocks to alabaster workshops. There they are
cut to the needed size ("squaring"), and then are processed in
different techniques: turned on a lathe for round shapes, carved into three-dimensional sculptures, chiselled to produce low relief figures or decoration; and then given an elaborate finish that reveals its transparency, colour, and texture.
In order to diminish the translucency
of the alabaster and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble,
the statues are immersed in a bath of water and heated gradually—nearly
to the boiling point—an operation requiring great care, because if the
temperature is not regulated carefully, the stone acquires a dead-white,
chalky appearance as with this lamp. The effect of heating appears to be a partial
dehydration of the gypsum. If properly treated, it very closely
resembles true marble and is known as "marmo di Castellina".
Much of the world's alabaster is extracted from the centre of the Ebro Valley in Aragon, Spain, which has the world's largest known exploitable deposits. In modern Europe, the centre of the alabaster trade is Florence, Italy. Tuscan alabaster occurs in nodular masses embedded in limestone, interstratified with marls of Miocene and Pliocene age. The mineral is worked largely by means of underground galleries, in the district of Volterra.
In
the 19th century new processing technology was introduced,
allowing for the production of custom-made, unique pieces, as well as
the combination of alabaster with other materials. Apart from the newly
developed craft, artistic work became again possible, chiefly by
Volterran sculptor Albino Funaioli. After a short slump, the industry was revived again by the sale of mass-produced mannerist Expressionist sculptures. It was further enhanced in the 1920s by a new branch that created ceiling and wall lamps in the Art Deco style, culminating in participation at the 1925 International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris.
Paris - 1925
photographer unknown
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Museum of Fine Arts Boston ~ alabaster
Wisteria ~ Alabaster for Any Aesthetic
YouTube links:
