Makrana Marble Backlit Moon Dome Lamp, 12in

Light through the stone, not around it

White marble is faintly translucent. Take it down below about ten millimetres and light will pass through it, picking up the crystal structure on the way and turning it a warm honey colour. This 12-inch dome is turned to exactly that thickness and lit from inside, so what you see is not a lamp with a marble shade — it is the stone itself glowing, with its own grain and hairline veining showing through as surface detail. Unlit, it is simply a smooth white dome on a dark base.

The two stones

The shell is Makrana white marble, chosen because it is the most translucent of the stones in production here and because its crystalline grain is fine enough to read as texture rather than as blotches. It sits on a low disc of black granite, which grounds it visually and gives the electrical fittings somewhere to live. Nothing else is added; there is no carving and no pattern anywhere on the dome.

Where it sits

A bedside table, a low console, the corner of a long sideboard. It throws almost no useful task light, which is the point — it is a warm object in a dark room rather than something to read by. It suits a dimmable circuit.

Making yours

Diameter, wall thickness and base stone can all change, and the warmer or cooler the bulb the more the stone shifts colour, so it is worth telling us what the room is like. It is turned for you by the master sculptors we work with in Jaipur; the shell is worked down in stages and checked against a lamp as it thins, because the last two millimetres are where a dome is won or lost. Allow four to eight weeks.