French Antique Limestone Garden Sphere

A French antique limestone garden sphere, the single version of the stone balls that once topped gate piers and garden walls across France. It is 13 1/2 inches in diameter, in muted oatmeal and weathered bone with cool slate shadows in the hollows. Fine hairline fissures and small mineral pits run across a surface that erosion has left coarse but soft, with a matte texture that takes light without glare. It is a plain round form and that is its whole appeal.

It is solid limestone, heavy for its size, and sits without fixing on a flat cap or in a bed of gravel; on a pier, or anywhere a child could roll it, we would pin it. We do not know the house it came from, and the weathering is even all the way round.

Set it at the end of a gravel path where the path needs a stop, tuck it among perennials so it half disappears, or stand it on a low plinth indoors as an object against dark steel, raw cedar or lime plaster. A pair would want a second from our yard, where we often have other antique stone balls of similar size. It is in Marina Del Rey; come and see it, or ask for photographs and a quote.