A type of dark-colored Belgian marble with fine grain, prized for decorative building and sculpture.
Named after the Rance River in Brittany, France, where this specific marble is quarried. The word entered English in the 1700s as European marble became fashionable for architecture and decoration.
Rance marble became so fashionable in 18th-century Europe that it appears in the palaces of Versailles and in famous churches—black marble with white and gold veining became a symbol of luxury, and quarries in Belgium and France competed fiercely to supply European nobility.
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