Corsi Collection of Decorative Stones

Explore Corsi's Stones

Browse the stones

browse the collection as a list, gallery or view thumbnails of all stones.

Find a specific stone

Find a specific stone with our find a stone page, or use the quick search form.

Identification tips

Take a look at our tips for identfying decorative stones.

Identifying decorative stones

Many decorative stones look distinctive, and particular geological features can help confirm an identification. You can search the database by entering some terms that describe the geological features, colours and patterns that you see. Choose how you would like to view your results – as a list of stones, thumbnails of all the stones meeting your criteria, or as a gallery of larger images, fifty to a page. Compare your stone with the images to see if any match. You can then read about each stone sample to find out what Corsi wrote about it and what we know about it today.

For simple explanations of many of the geological terms that we use, together with a step-by-step ‘what to look for’ guide, see our tips for identifying decorative stone.

Not all stones are easy to recognise. They may need examination as thin sections under a petrological microscope, or use of other research instruments to obtain an accurate identification.

Polished stone in a table-top at Farnborough Hall, Oxfordshire, identified using the Corsi collection.close up of the table top.close detail of the table top.

19th century inlaid stone tabletop at the National Trust’s Farnborough Hall in Oxfordshire.

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search tips

Searches the database for all stone records containing the words you enter. To search for a text string, put it between quotation marks. To search for stone records that don't contain a word, put a minus sign in front of it.

For example, entering: granite "coarse-grained" -Egypt will find all the coarse-grained granites that do not come from Egypt.

Terms of three characters or less have not been indexed.