scagliola

[ skal-yoh-luh ]

noun

1. plasterwork imitating marble, granite, or the like.

scagliola

/ skælˈjəʊlə /

noun

1. imitation marble made of glued gypsum with a polished surface of coloured stone or marble dust

Other Words From

• scagl·iolist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of scagliola¹

1575–85; < Italian, equivalent to scagli ( a ) a chip (< Gothic skalja tile; cognate with shell ) + -ola diminutive suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of scagliola¹

C16: from Italian, diminutive of scaglia chip of marble, of Germanic origin; related to shale , scale ²

Example Sentences

In a nook that resembled a messy kitchen, an Argentinean employee, a trained sculptor named Sebas Beyro, was preparing to make a cast by kneading a “dough” of scagliola—plaster tinted to imitate stone.

From The New Yorker

So instead of hiring an artisan to custom carve real marble, they hired a Philadelphia firm called Wells Vissar to create the scagliola, which took about two months to complete and 10 days to install.

From Wall Street Journal

But there was one exception: For the fireplace in the great room, she chose scagliola, a technique popular in grand homes in the 17th and 18th centuries in which plaster and silk are cast and styled to look like marble.

From Wall Street Journal

Other artists include Rico Scagliola and Michael Meier, whose multimedia installations incorporate film and photography; and Hiroko Komatsu, who makes large-scale installations using black and white photographs that are scribbled on and printed at several times their original size.

From New York Times

With his blessing, most residents still call him “Mr. Charles,” a genteel designation from an earlier era that still hangs on in other small ways, like the milk chutes adjacent to the condo doors, the wood-burning fireplaces in one tier of the building, the 100 or so residents who crowd the scagliola foyer Wednesday evening and shout “hip hip hooray” three times while raising glasses of sauvignon blanc to toast the man who predates them all.

From Washington Post