Carrarra White and grey veins

Maison & Maison allows you to design your own custom-made mantel in luxury marbles such as Carrara marbles. Four varieties of Carrara marbles are available to make your custom mantel: Statuary, Semi-statuary, White and White veined with gray. Our mantels are fully customized through your freedom in the choice of marble.

At all times, Carrara marbles were the most popular and were used to create exceptional works of art. A great many mantels have been carved in Carrara marble. The Hotel de la Marine in Paris retains many fine old mantels, including those of the Salon des Amiraux and the Salon Diplomatique. Le Salon Violet in Chantilly also features a beautiful mantel in Carrara marble decorated with bronzes. This Louis XV style mantel is quite comparable to our custom "Comtesse de Mailly" mantel.

The rooms of Egyptian antiquities in the Louvre Museum in Paris equally feature a beautiful Carrara marble mantel fully carved with lion shaped jambs.

Carrara marble is quarried in the Apuan Alps near the town of Carrara. It has been universally known since ancient times for its unparalleled whiteness. The marble can be of great purity and slightly veined with gray.
The quarries of Carrara were probably exploited since the Bronze Age by the locals. The Roman period saw the beginning of a genuine extraction policy. During the rule of Julius Caesar, blocks were being extracted and shipped to Rome for the construction of public buildings and villas in great quantities. Exports went through the port of Luni, which gave its ancient name to the marble : “Marmo Lunense” (or “Luni marble”).
The exploitation of the Carrara quarries came to a halt in the fifth century during the difficult period of the barbarian invasions, and began again when there was a renewed interest in marble for the construction of churches.
During the Italian Renaissance, the quarries of Carrara were developed, particularly under the influence of the Medici family. The Carrara marble was the favorite of the greatest sculptors, such as Michelangelo who, for many of his works, used a variety of White Carrara called statuary Carrara, which was absolutely pure white. Today, statuary Carrara  is no longer as white as it was at that time.

Currently, the site of Carrara is a large scale operation, exporting marbles all over the world. It offers the finest white marbles and the most luxurious.
To produce its mantels, Maison & Maison offers four varieties of white Carrara marble from the most pure white to most veined: statuary Carrara, semi-statuary Carrara , Carrara white or Carrara veined with gray.