AN ITALIAN LIDDED URN IN GREEN GRECIAN PORPHYRY (LAPIS SPARTANUS) EARLY 19TH CENTURY 45cm high, base 12.5cm wide Provenance: The Simon Neal Collection This lidded urn is carved from the rare marble known as Lapis Spartanus. With yellow and white snowflake crystals of Feldspar, it belongs to the family of Green Porphyry marbles that originated from ancient Greece, commonly called Serpentine (Porfidi volgarmente detti Serpentini or Marmor Lacedaemon). Found mostly around Mount Taygetus, near the ancient Greek city of Sparta, in the region of Laconia, the marble is so rare that it is invariably only seen in small pieces. For this reason, the Italian Lawyer & eminent collector of ancient decorative stones, Avvocato Faustino Corsi (1771-1846) wrote that: "Indeed in Rome there is not to be seen either a column, or a bath, or an urn of serpentine". Therefore, the ancients mostly used it for flooring, for example, at the Nymphaeum known as Egeria's Grotto. Described by the Romans, Papinius Statius stated that the hard rocks of Sparta were green, and Pliny likened it to emerald (smeraldo) and described it as "more beautiful and vivid than any other". Pausanius believed its pieces were carried by rivers, which may explain why pieces of serpentine are often found disseminated and Lampridius recounted that Elagabalus laid Lacodemonian porphyritic marble for the public squares on the Palatine in Rome. Although sometimes known as Green Porphyry, Corsi explains that it "differs from porphyry by the singular shape of the markings, otherwise crystals, which are rather long and angular, are arranged in the shape of a star, and more commonly in the form of the cross of St. Andrew".