The Orb

The Orb

A round alabaster tealight holder, hand-carved in Luxor from one solid block of Egyptian alabaster. Nothing is glued or joined. The carver hollows the ball out until the wall is thin enough for light to get through, then polishes the outside smooth.

Unlit, it looks like a pale stone sphere, somewhere between cream and honey depending on the block it came from. Put a tealight inside and it changes. The whole piece glows amber and the banding in the stone shows up as darker rings and clouds you could not see before. That banding is the geology showing: this stone formed in layers as water moved through limestone caves, so strictly speaking it is a banded travertine, and the mineral is calcite rather than the gypsum that true alabaster refers to. Egyptians have quarried it since antiquity, mostly for jars and bowls, some of them royal or funerary. Mohs hardness is about 3. Soft enough to work with hand tools, but noticeably harder than gypsum alabaster.

No two are the same. Colour, veining and how much light gets through all vary from block to block, so the one you receive will not be identical to the photographs. We think that is the point.

Three sizes

The small is the original 8 cm Orb, about 300 g, fine on a bedside table or a windowsill. The medium and large are the same shape scaled up, so there is more stone for the light to travel through and they sit heavier on a table. If you want an alabaster candle holder with real weight to it, the large at 12 cm is a proper object in the hand. All three take a standard tealight.

Where it comes from

Luxor has worked alabaster for about as long as anyone has. Most of the workshops sit on the west bank of the Nile, near the tombs the stone was originally cut 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 buy directly from the workshop that carves these, then hold the stock ourselves in Amsterdam. Your order is picked off a shelf here and posted from here. Nothing travels from Egypt to reach you, so it arrives in days rather than a fortnight, and there is no customs charge anywhere in the EU.

Specifications

• S 8 cm diameter, approx. 300 g
• M 10 cm diameter, about 590 g (estimated)
• L 12 cm diameter, about 1010 g (estimated)
• Material hand-carved Egyptian alabaster (calcite), single block
• Origin carved in Luxor, Egypt
• Fits one standard tealight. Tealight not included.
• Finish hand-polished, smooth
• Care wipe with a soft dry cloth. Keep it away from prolonged water. No acidic or abrasive cleaners; this is a calcium-based stone and acid will etch the surface.