Indian Pietra Dura Table Top

Red all over, and broken into pieces on purpose.

This pietra dura table top comes from Rajasthan, India, and is contemporary work in jasper and hardstone. Pietra dura is generally understood as the art of fitting cut stones together so closely they read as one surface, a skill Rajasthani workshops have kept up since Mughal times. Here irregular polygons of red jasper are laid like crazy paving, separated by fine pale joints. The stone carries its own markings, white veins and darker specks, and the edge shows the same mosaic in narrow strips. It is 21 inches in diameter and 1 inch high.

Somebody solved a jigsaw puzzle and then refused to put it away.