Tennessee marble

National Gallery of Art West Building Washington, D.C.

Description

A variety of Marble of mottled colors usually with pink, gray, white, or brown backgrounds. Tennessee marbles are quarried in the eastern part of the state. They are a hard, compact marble used for exterior and interior decoration and sculpture. Tennessee marbles can have exposed shells or styolites.

Some names for Tennessee marbles are:

• gray Tennessee
• dark cedar
• dark Republic
• F.A.Pink
• Tennessee Pink
• Friendsville Pink

Resources and Citations

• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971 Comment: p. 499

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996