IMPORTANTE PAIRE DE COLONNES EN PORPHYRE D'EGYPTE... Lot n° 172

Italy, 19th century Each fluted Height: 150 cm No other stone in Western civilization has attained the same prestigious status as porphyry. A stone that has embodied the power of emperors and rulers since Antiquity, and since the end of the the end of the Roman Empire was a means of legitimizing and underlining the power of any pretender to the throne. Dark purple in color with flecks of white, the hard volcanic stone was, according to Pliny's Naturalis Historia, discovered by legionary Caius Cominius in 18 AD at a place now known as Mons Porphyrites (Porphyry Mountain), in Egypt's eastern desert. The Romans gave the stone a name: "porphyry", derived from the Latin word for purple, the color of nobility. Exceptionally strong and durable, its intrinsic qualities were perfectly suited to the message of power and authority, but also made it extremely difficult to work and carve, making objects in this hard stone both political and artistic statements. After the 5th century, quarrying ceased and Mons Porphyrites fell into oblivion. Thereafter, the only source of porphyry of this type used in Western Europe was the ruins of ancient Rome, imbuing the new works created with a deep spiritual link to antiquity.