Chinese Stool | Side Table

Stripes of moss, plum and slate run down the sides like layers of a cliff face.

This stool or side table comes from Guizhou Province, China, and is Ruyuan stone. Natural stone furniture of this kind follows an old Chinese taste for rocks shaped by nature rather than the chisel, polished just enough to show their markings. The block is nearly square in plan, with a flat top layered in purple, gray-green and rust, cut across by a long dark vein. The sides fall in vertical streaks of green, ochre and brown, stepping in slightly toward the base. It is 20.25 inches long, 20 deep and 13 high.

Geology, sitting still long enough to be furniture.