Mosaic Cube L

Mosaic Cube L

The large mosaic cube, sold on its own. A tall rectangular column built from dozens of small Egyptian alabaster tiles, each cut by hand in Luxor and set edge to edge. It is not carved from a single block, and it is not meant to look as though it were.

Unlit it reads as a pale, slightly chalky column with the tile pattern worked across its faces. Lit, it becomes a different object. The stone is translucent, so light passes through each tile rather than bouncing off it. Some tiles run milky, some closer to honey, a few are almost black, and one carries a brown inclusion like a fossil. The result is a column that lights unevenly, which a single carved wall could never do, with the seams showing as thin bright lines between the tiles.

The stone is calcite rather than gypsum. Geologically it is a banded travertine, laid down layer by layer as water moved through limestone caves, which is where the horizontal banding in each tile comes from. Around 3 on the Mohs scale.

Specifications

• Size: large, the taller of the two cubes in the Pair
• Material: hand-cut Egyptian alabaster (calcite) tiles
• Construction: tiled mosaic, not a single block. Nothing cast or moulded.
• Type: electric table lamp
• Bulb: E27 fitting. Bulb not included.
• Care: soft dry cloth only. Keep away from standing water and from acidic or abrasive cleaners; the stone is calcium-based and acid etches it.

Where it comes from

The tiles are cut and the cube assembled in Luxor, Upper Egypt, in workshops on the west bank of the Nile near the tombs this stone was first quarried for. The stone has been quarried in Egypt since antiquity, from sites in the region around Luxor and in Middle Egypt, among them Hatnub, Wadi Gerrawi and Wadi el-Assiuti, several of which were worked as far back as the Predynastic period.

We hold stock in Amsterdam and post from there. Nothing travels from Egypt to reach you. Days rather than weeks, and no customs charge inside the EU.