A Regency carved Ashford black marble vase, circa 1820

Ashford marble is in fact a type of limestone rather than a marble, which when polished, turns a deep glossy black. It is produced from only two quarries near Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire.

The material proved popular as a building material and as early as 1580, Bess of Hardwick commissioned a chimney piece for Chatsworth. The connection with the family Cavendish family and the Dukes of Devonshire was always present and in the 18th century it was a popular material for ornaments being developed by Henry Watson of Bakewell. It was not until the 19th century that it really became fashionable as a material for both ornaments and furniture, promoted by William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire who studied Minerology with Watson’s nephew White Watson.

It is therefore suitable to find at Chatsworth today an identical vase, of smaller scale, to the present lot (see fig.1), painted by William Henry Hunt in 1822 in the Duke's Study where he kept his mineral collection. These two vases are testament of the appreciation of the material's inherent properties in the early years of the 19^th century, before Ashford "marble" turns to be used mainly as a ground for inlaid coloured marbles in the Italian tradition.