Antique Book Caddy with Alabaster Lamp

• Alabaster - Alabaster is soft natural stone used for statuary, with a similar appearance to marble, but easier to work with. As it is softer than marble, an item made from alabaster can be scratched with a metal object, and an alabaster item does not polish to a high surface gloss like marble.
  
  Alabaster objects can be semi-translucent. Alabaster occurs in a pure white form and also with veining from dirt. Colours vary from white through yellow and pink to brown. The veining is usually green or black but can be multicoloured.
  
  Being semi-translucent, alabaster is often used for the bowls of figural lamps, with the figure itself being either alabaster or marble.
• Mahogany - Mahogany is a dense, close grained red-coloured timber from the West Indies and Central America. It was first imported into Europe in the the early 18th century and its use continued through the 19th century. It was popular for furniture making because of its strength, the wide boards available, the distinctive grain on some boards, termed flame mahogany and the rich warm colour of the timber when it was polished.. The "flame" was produced where a limb grew out from the trunk of the tree, and this timber was usually sliced into veneers for feature panels on doors, backs and cornices.
  
  Some terms used to describe mahogany relate to the country from which it originally came, such as "Cuban" mahogany, "Honduras" mahogany etc. However unless the wood has been tested the names assigned are more a selling feature, rather than a true indication of the timber's origin.
• Oak - Native to Europe and England, oak has been used for joinery, furniture and building since the beginning of the medieval civilisation. It is a pale yellow in colour when freshly cut and darkens with age to a mid brown colour.
  
  Oak as a furniture timber was superceded by walnut in the 17th century, and in the 18th century by mahogany,
  
  Semi-fossilised bog oak is black in colour, and is found in peat bogs where the trees have fallen and been preserved from decay by the bog. It is used for jewellery and small carved trinkets.
  
  Pollard oak is taken from an oak that has been regularly pollarded, that is the upper branches have been removed at the top of the trunk, result that new branches would appear, and over time the top would become ball-like. . When harvested and sawn, the timber displays a continuous surface of knotty circles. The timber was scarce and expensive and was used in more expensive pieces of furniture in the Regency and Victorian periods.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• lighting and lamps, material or type - alabaster and marble 122
• marble - lights 137