Indian Pietra Dura Table Top with Diamond Motifs

Row upon row of diamonds, and no two of them quite agree.

This pietra dura table top with diamond motifs comes from Rajasthan, India, and is contemporary, a hardstone mosaic. Pietra dura is the craft of fitting cut stones into a smooth surface. Mughal builders in India took it up on a grand scale, and workshops in the region still practice it. Lozenges of green, ochre, cream, red and brown stone stand in a dark lattice, many showing veins and swirls of their own. A red veined border frames the field. Nineteen and three quarter inches by sixty-one and three quarters.

It needs legs. That is a minor detail.