French Antique Limestone Slab

A French antique limestone slab that is really a block: 10 inches thick, dense and solid, with a broad flat top. The color is warm cream and ash gray with faint beige, marked by darker speckling across the face. The top undulates gently and carries small pits that break up the light; the edges are irregular and slightly softened, with small chips and open pores that show the grain of the stone.

It measures 38 3/4 inches wide, 31 3/4 inches deep and 10 inches high. The thickness is what makes it useful as a free-standing object; it can sit on the floor without a base and still read as furniture. Condition was as found, with the chips and pores noted above. A block like this travels on a pallet and is set with a forklift or by a mason with rollers.

Under a fireplace surround it makes a deep hearth base. At an entry it is a substantial threshold or a single step. In a garden it is a plinth for a large vessel, a seat, or a low stone table beside a bench. This limestone slab has sold, but blocks of this thickness are something we regularly bring back from France; ask us and we will send photographs of what is in Marina Del Rey or on the water now.