colour on marble (from 1856)

["Peggy B. Perazzo" <pbperazzo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello: This is not an answer to your question using today's techniques,
but I thought you might enjoy what was suggested in 1856, taken from
"The Marble-Workers Manual" translated from the French, which is on our
web site if you would like to view the rest of the book.
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~quarries/marble_workers_manual/mwh-contents.html

Peggy Perazzo
Stone Quarries and Beyond
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~quarries/index.html

* * * * * * *
ON THE COLORING OF MARBLES. (From "The Marble-Workers Manual," 1856.)

§ 33. By an easy process, different colors are given to Marbles. Colors
extracted from vegetables, such as saffron, Brazilian wood, cochineal,
litmus, dragonâ¬"s blood, etc., when joined with a suitable dissolvent,
as spirits of wine, urine mixed with quick lime and soda, oils, etc.,
stain the Marble, and penetrate it quite deeply; but to give it
stronger, more durable and penetrating colors, metallic acidulous
solutions are necessary, such as aqua-fortis, spirits of salts, etc.

Artificial marble can also be made. This process is commenced by making
a foundation of plaster, tempered with glue water. This foundation is
covered about half an inch in thickness with the following composition:

Take foliated and transparent plaster-stone, calcine it by fire, and
reduce it to a very fine powder, dilute it with strong glue-water, and
add red or yellow ochre, or whatever color may be wished. The coloring
should not be wholly mixed with the composition when veined Marble is
desired. After this composition has been applied, and is perfectly dry,
polish it by first rubbing it with fine sand, and afterwards with
pumice, or trioli stone, and finish by rubbing finally with oil.

§ 34. No particular description has ever been given of the fine Marbles
of the Vosges mountains. There are two varieties; the granite and red
tints, and the Marbles, black, grey, and shaded with dove and rose
colors. The black has a few dirty white stains; its black has a reddish
cast, which somewhat detracts from its beauty. The red is striped in
straight lines upon a dove ground; the grey is almost a Breccia with
points, or little brown, grey, or russet shell work. These varieties are
easily worked, which fact has caused the establishment of several
workshops at Epinal, where a large number of tables, slabs for bureaus
and secretaries, etc., are fabricated, and many smaller articles are
made by the prisoners, who are thus relieved, by occupation, from the
dangers of idleness.

Oscar Bearinger wrote: