Calacatta Viola Polished Marble Hexagon Mosaic Tiles

Calacatta Viola's burgundy, blackberry and violet arrive as broad sweeping masses across a snow-white ground. At slab scale those masses travel. Cut into 48 mm hexagons, each piece captures a section of one instead: a wedge of deep violet on this piece, a thread of charcoal on the next, a clean white face on a third. The sheet therefore reads as scattered colour rather than as continuous movement, which is a far more usable thing in a small room. A bathroom lined in unbroken Calacatta Viola is overwhelming; the same stone in hexagons is emphatic but liveable.

Polishing raises the saturation considerably. The violet in particular deepens on a reflective face and looks noticeably paler on a honed sample cut from the same block, so judge it in the finish you intend to buy.

Because colour is distributed unevenly between pieces, dry-lay several sheets and spread the strongest ones deliberately rather than fixing straight from the box. The stone is calcitic; on a polished face etching shows as a dull patch against the gloss.