One stone at a time.
A mosaic is not painted — it is built. Thousands of cut stones, each set by hand, until an image holds the light.
Nothing, then
something.
No brush touches a true mosaic. The image emerges from thousands of tesserae — smalti glass, marble, gold leaf fused in glass — each nipped to size and bedded by hand. Scroll, and watch the field fill, stone by stone.
Four hands, one light.
The cartoon
Full-size drawing on paper. Colour, flow and the direction of every row are decided before a single stone is cut.
The cut
Smalti and marble are nipped with hammer and hardie into tesserae — square, wedge, sliver — to catch the light just so.
The setting
Stone by stone into a lime bed, each tilted a hair so the surface shimmers rather than glares. Andamento — the flow of the rows — is everything.
The grout
Joints filled, surface cleaned, gold leaf sealed. Set right, a mosaic outlives the building it is set into.
Works that hold the light.
Apse, floor, portrait or panel — each set by hand in smalti and gold.
Old stones, patient hands.
We cut and set mosaic in the old manner — smalti, marble and gold-leaf tesserae, bedded in lime, for walls, floors, apses and private commissions. We take few works a year, and we set every stone by hand.
Set it in stone.
Tell us the wall, the size, the image — we will send a cartoon and a price.