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44-725: The Côte d'Albâtre ( French pronunciation: [kot dalbatʁ] ; literally the Alabaster Coast in English) is part of the French coast of the English Channel , corresponding to the coastline of Pays de Caux and forming almost all of the coastline of Seine-Maritime . Since 2009 it has been classified as a Natura 2000 site. It takes its name from the white hue of its high chalk cliffs, including those of Étretat , which stretch for over 120 km, dominating most of

88-479: A delicate green variety at La Pedrara , in the district of Tecali , near Puebla . Onyx-marble occurs also in the district of Tehuacán and at several localities in the US including California , Arizona , Utah , Colorado and Virginia . Gypsum alabaster is softer than calcite alabaster. It was used primarily in medieval Europe, and is also used in modern times. "Mosul marble" is a kind of gypsum alabaster found in

132-540: A higher standard of refined manufacture and finish; the classification usually excludes objects made for realising a practical function. As works of art, objets de vertu reflect the rarified aesthetic and conspicuous consumption characteristic of an aristocratic court — of the late-medieval Burgundian dukes , the Mughal emperors , or Ming China — such as the Lycurgus Cup , which is a cage cup made of Roman glass ;

176-403: A smooth, polished surface is washed with dishwashing liquid , it will become rough, dull and whiter, losing most of its translucency and lustre. The finer kinds of alabaster are employed largely as an ornamental stone , especially for ecclesiastical decoration and for the rails of staircases and halls. Alabaster is mined and then sold in blocks to alabaster workshops. There they are cut to

220-508: A variety of indoor artwork and carving, as they will not survive long outdoors. The two types are readily distinguished by their different hardness: gypsum alabaster ( Mohs hardness 1.5 to 2) is so soft that a fingernail scratches it, while calcite (Mohs hardness 3) cannot be scratched in this way but yields to a knife. Moreover, calcite alabaster, being a carbonate, effervesces when treated with hydrochloric acid , while gypsum alabaster remains almost unaffected. The English word "alabaster"

264-483: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Alabaster Chemically, gypsum is a hydrous sulfate of calcium , whereas calcite is a carbonate of calcium. As types of alabaster, gypsum and calcite have similar properties, such as light color, translucence, and soft stones that can be carved and sculpted ; thus the historical use and application of alabaster for the production of carved, decorative artefacts and objets d’art . Calcite alabaster also

308-497: Is a porous stone and can be "dyed" into any colour or shade, a technique used for centuries. For this the stone needs to be fully immersed in various pigmentary solutions and heated to a specific temperature. The technique can be used to disguise alabaster. In this way a very misleading imitation of coral that is called "alabaster coral" is produced. Typically only one type is sculpted in any particular cultural environment, but sometimes both have been worked to make similar pieces in

352-585: Is also found, in smaller quantity, at Watchet in Somerset , near Penarth in Glamorganshire , and elsewhere. In Cumbria it occurs largely in the New Red rocks, but at a lower geological horizon. The alabaster of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is found in thick nodular beds or "floors" in spheroidal masses known as "balls" or "bowls" and in smaller lenticular masses termed "cakes". At Chellaston, where

396-528: Is based on encounters in 1868 with the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne , whom he had helped save from drowning. The Clos Lupin Museum features chiefly the famous early 20th-century character Arsène Lupin , a gentleman thief created by writer Maurice Leblanc . 49°46′N 0°22′E  /  49.767°N 0.367°E  / 49.767; 0.367 This Seine-Maritime geographical article

440-543: Is derived: onyx-marble or alabaster-onyx, or sometimes simply (and wrongly) as onyx . Egyptian alabaster has been worked extensively near Suez and Assiut . This stone variety is the "alabaster" of the ancient Egyptians and Bible and is often termed Oriental alabaster , since the early examples came from the Far East . The Greek name alabastrites is said to be derived from the town of Alabastron in Egypt , where

484-537: Is devoured. The Côte d’Albâtre was a favourite subject of Impressionist painters, including Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir . It was frequented by composers associated with the sea, such as Claude Debussy and Albert Roussel . Other artists who painted the coastline include Gustave Courbet and Eugène Boudin . Writer Guy de Maupassant grew up on the Côte d'Albâtre at Étretat. His short story "The Englishman of Étretat" ( L'Anglais d'Étretat )

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528-449: Is home to a natural gypsum cave in which much of the gypsum is in the form of alabaster. There are several types of alabaster found at the site, including pink, white, and the rare black alabaster. Chronological list of examples: Objet d%27art In art history , the French term objet d'art ( / ˌ ɒ b ʒ eɪ ˈ d ɑːr / ; French pronunciation: [ɔbʒɛ daʁ] ) describes an ornamental work of art , and

572-521: Is known as: onyx-marble , Egyptian alabaster , and Oriental alabaster , which terms usually describe either a compact, banded travertine stone or a stalagmitic limestone colored with swirling bands of cream and brown. In general, ancient alabaster is calcite in the wider Middle East , including Egypt and Mesopotamia , while it is gypsum in medieval Europe . Modern alabaster is most likely calcite but may be either. Both are easy to work and slightly soluble in water. They have been used for making

616-545: Is on display in Sir John Soane's Museum , London ; it is carved in a single block of translucent calcite alabaster from Alabastron. Algerian onyx-marble has been quarried largely in the province of Oran . Calcite alabaster was quarried in ancient Israel in the cave known as the Twins Cave near Beit Shemesh . Herod used this alabaster for baths in his palaces. In Mexico , there are famous deposits of

660-516: Is sent to Florence for figure-sculpture, while the common kinds are carved locally, into vases, lights, and various ornamental objects. These items are objects of extensive trade, especially in Florence, Pisa , and Livorno . In the 3rd century BC the Etruscans used the alabaster of Tuscany from the area of modern-day Volterra to produce funeral urns , possibly taught by Greek artists. During

704-752: Is the Fuentes- Azaila area, in the Tertiary Ebro Basin. The other is the Calatayud -Teruel Basin, which divides the Iberian Range in two main sectors (NW and SE). The abundance of Aragonese alabaster was crucial for its use in architecture, sculpture and decoration. There is no record of use by pre-Roman cultures, so the first ones to use alabaster from Aragon may have been the Romans, who produced vessels from alabaster following

748-589: The Aljafería Palace, together with other interesting elements like capitals, reliefs and inscriptions, were made using alabaster, but it was during the artistic and economic blossoming of the Renaissance that Aragonese alabaster reached its golden age. In the 16th century sculptors in Aragon chose alabaster for their best works. They were adept at exploiting its lighting qualities and generally speaking

792-528: The British Museum , are some of the best known. Gypsum alabaster was widely used for small sculpture for indoor use in the ancient world, especially in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia . Fine detail could be obtained in a material with an attractive finish without iron or steel tools. Alabaster was used for vessels dedicated for use in the cult of the deity Bast in the culture of the ancient Egyptians, and thousands of gypsum alabaster artifacts dating to

836-632: The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels , dedicated in 2002 by the Los Angeles, California, Archdiocese . The cathedral incorporates special cooling to prevent the panes from overheating and turning opaque. The ancients used the calcite type, while the modern Los Angeles cathedral employs gypsum alabaster. There are also multiple examples of alabaster windows in ordinary village churches and monasteries in northern Spain. Calcite alabaster, harder than

880-583: The Ebro Valley in Aragon , Spain , which has the world's largest known exploitable deposits. According to a brochure published by the Aragon government, alabaster has elsewhere either been depleted, or its extraction is so difficult that it has almost been abandoned or is carried out at a very high cost. There are two separate sites in Aragon, both are located in Tertiary basins. The most important site

924-677: The English Reformation the making of altarpiece sets was discontinued, but funerary monument work in reliefs and statues continued. In addition to the carvings still in Britain (particularly the Nottingham Castle Museum , British Museum , and Victoria and Albert Museum ), trade in mineral alabaster (other than the antiques trade) is ongoing as far afield as the Musée de Cluny , Spain, and Scandinavia. Alabaster

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968-554: The Middle Ages the craft of alabaster was almost completely forgotten. A revival started in the mid-16th century, and until the beginning of the 17th century alabaster work was strictly artistic and did not expand to form a large industry. In the 17th and 18th centuries production of artistic, high-quality Renaissance-style artifacts stopped altogether, replaced by less sophisticated, cheaper items better suited for large-scale production and commerce. The new industry prospered, but

1012-631: The Valmont river; Dieppe on the Arques , and Tréport on the Bresle . Stage 6 of the 2015 Tour de France followed the Côte d'Albâtre for much of its length from Abbeville to Le Havre . From Dieppe to Le Havre the coast presents an uninterrupted cliff, about a hundred metres high and straight as a wall. Here and there that great line of white rocks drops sharply and a little, narrow valley, with steep slopes, shaved turf and maritime rushes, comes down from

1056-501: The 14th and 15th centuries the carving into small statues and sets of relief panels for altarpieces was a valuable local industry in Nottingham , as well as a major English export. These were usually painted, or partly painted. It was also used for the effigies, often life size, on tomb monuments , as the typical recumbent position suited the material's lack of strength, and it was cheaper and easier to work than good marble. After

1100-533: The Byzantine agate "Rubens vase"; the Roman glass " Portland Vase ", and onyx and chalcedony cameo carvings , whilst the pre–World War I production of objets d'art featured Fabergé eggs made of precious metals and decorated with gemstones . A comparable term that appears in 18th- and 19th-century French sale catalogs, though now less used, is objets de curiosité , "objects of curiosity", now devolved into

1144-695: 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. The coarser varieties of gypsum alabaster are converted by calcination into plaster of Paris , and are sometimes known as "plaster stone". The softness of alabaster enables it to be carved readily into elaborate forms, but its solubility in water renders it unsuitable for outdoor work. If alabaster with

1188-726: The Greek and Egyptian models. It seems that since the reconstruction of the Roman Wall in Zaragoza in the 3rd century AD with alabaster, the use of this material became common in building for centuries. Muslim Saraqusta (Zaragoza) was also called "Medina Albaida", the White City, due to the appearance of its alabaster walls and palaces, which stood out among gardens, groves and orchards by the Ebro and Huerva Rivers. The oldest remains in

1232-561: The coastline. It is part of the same geological system as the White Cliffs of Dover on the far side of the English Channel. The Côte runs from the large container port of Le Havre to the small fishing village of Le Tréport , taking in the town of Dieppe , as well as Fécamp (famous for its abbey ) and Saint-Valery-en-Caux . Three river valleys punctuate the cliff face, making way for the harbours of Fécamp, sheltering on

1276-411: The cultivated plateau towards a beach of shingle where it ends with a ravine like the bed of a torrent. Nature has made these valleys; the rains of storms have ended with them in the shape of these ravines, trimming what was left of the cliff, excavating down to the sea, the bed of waters which acts as a passage for mankind. Sometimes, a village is snuggled into these valleys, where the wind of the open sea

1320-829: The evolution of alabaster use after World War II are Volterran Umberto Borgna , the "first alabaster designer", and later on the architect and industrial designer Angelo Mangiarotti . Gypsum alabaster is a common mineral, which occurs in England in the Keuper marls of the Midlands , especially at Chellaston in Derbyshire , at Fauld in Staffordshire , and near Newark in Nottinghamshire . Deposits at all of these localities have been worked extensively. In

1364-496: The finished art pieces retained their natural color. 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 . Several varieties are recognized—veined, spotted, clouded, agatiform, and others. The finest kind, obtained principally from Castellina ,

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1408-450: The gypsum variety, was used in ancient Egypt and the wider Middle East (except Assyrian palace reliefs ), and also in modern times. It is found as either a stalagmitic deposit from the floor and walls of limestone caverns , or as a kind of travertine , similarly deposited in springs of calcareous water. Its deposition in successive layers gives rise to the banded appearance that the marble often shows on cross-section, from which its name

1452-564: The late 4th millennium BC also have been found in Tell Brak (modern Nagar ), in Syria . In Mesopotamia, gypsum alabaster was the material of choice for figures of deities and devotees in temples, as in a figure believed to represent the deity Abu dating to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, which is kept in New York. Much of the world's alabaster is extracted from the centre of

1496-463: The local alabaster is known as "Patrick", it has been worked into ornaments under the name of "Derbyshire spar"―a term more properly applied to fluorspar . Black alabaster is a rare anhydrite form of the gypsum-based mineral. The black form is found in only three veins in the world, one each in United States , Italy , and China . Alabaster Caverns State Park , near Freedom, Oklahoma ,

1540-422: 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,

1584-593: 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 . Important names in

1628-480: The north of modern Iraq , which was used for the Assyrian palace reliefs of the 9th to 7th centuries BC; these are the largest type of alabaster sculptures to have been regularly made. The relief is very low and the carving detailed, but large rooms were lined with continuous compositions on slabs around 7 feet (2.1 m) high. The Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal and military Lachish reliefs , both 7th century and in

1672-499: The reduced need for skilled craftsmen left few of them still working. The 19th century brought a boom to the industry, largely due to the "traveling artisans" who offered their wares to the palaces of Europe, as well as to America and the East. In the 19th century new processing technology was also introduced, allowing for the production of custom-made, unique pieces, as well as the combination of alabaster with other materials. Apart from

1716-634: The same place and time. This was the case with small flasks of the alabastron type made in Cyprus from the Bronze Age into the Classical period. When cut into thin sheets, alabaster is translucent enough to be used for small windows. It was used for this purpose in Byzantine churches and later in medieval ones, especially in Italy . Large sheets of Aragonese gypsum alabaster are used extensively in

1760-509: The scope of the Museum’s ceramic, plate, textiles and glass collections." The artwork collection also includes metal curtain ties, a lacquered papier-maché tray, tobacco boxes, cigarette cases , découpage (cut-paper items), portrait miniatures , a gilt-brass clock finial, plaques, statuettes, plaquettes, a horse brass , a metal pipe tamper, a small glass painting , et cetera. The objet de vertu , wherein vertu suggests rich materials and

1804-422: 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. 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 ". Alabaster

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1848-482: The stone was quarried. The locality may owe its name to the mineral; though the origin of the mineral name is obscure The "Oriental" alabaster was highly esteemed for making small perfume bottles or ointment vases called alabastra ; the vessel name has been suggested as a possible source of the mineral name. In Egypt, craftsmen used alabaster for canopic jars and various other sacred and sepulchral objects. The sarcophagus of Seti I , found in his tomb near Thebes ,

1892-750: The term objets d’art describes a range of works of art, usually small and three-dimensional, made of high-quality materials, and a finely-rendered finish that emphasises the aesthetics of the artefact. Artists create and produce objets d’art in the fields of the decorative arts and metalwork , porcelain and vitreous enamel ; figurines , plaquettes , and engraved gems ; ivory carvings and semi-precious hardstone carvings ; tapestries , antiques , and antiquities ; and books with fine bookbinding . The National Maritime Museum , Greenwich , London, describes their accumulated artworks as a: "collection of objets d’art [which] comprises over 800 objects. These are mostly small, decorative art items that fall outside

1936-567: 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

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