Lot Essay
The simple understated elegance of this beautiful Irish chimneypiece is accentuated and enhanced by the 'Kilkenny marble' panels. Extracted just outside Kilkenny in a place known as the 'Black Quarry', the material, although widely referred to as marble, is in fact a finely grained carboniferous limestone. As with the case in hand the material is often speckled with a multitude of fossils calcified in white limestone. The silky black sheen of the stone in stark contrast to the white fossils gives the material a luxurious quality, each strata revealing a glimpse of life in a prehistoric age, and given new life by Irish masons working in the Reign of the Prince Regent.