Venetian plaster designs
Twelve signature Venetian plaster designs and over a hundred colourways, each with its own recipe, trowel technique and way of holding light. Every one can be sampled on a board in your own room before you commit.
High polish
Matte to satin
Eggshell to silk
Satin
Matte, textured
Deep lustre
Velvet matte
Mirror gloss
Pearl metallic
Matte to soft satin
Antiqued matte
Soft matte
01 · Venice, 16th century
The original polished Venetian plaster.
Slaked lime putty and fine marble flour laid in six to eight wafer-thin passes, then burnished with a steel trowel until the surface reads like honed marble. Depth comes from the layers below, not from the colour on top.
02 · Veneto, Palladian villas
Quiet stone with a soft cloud.
A coarser marble aggregate applied in two or three coats and compressed rather than mirror-polished. The finish keeps a stone-like matte body with drifting tonal cloud, favoured by Palladio's plasterers and by modern minimalists alike.
03 · Classical Italian lime putty
Pure aged lime putty, burnished to silk.
Lime putty matured for months before use, tinted with natural earth pigment and pressed to an eggshell sheen. The most forgiving of the classic finishes and the one that ages the most gracefully in daylight.
04 · Modern Italian trowel work
Visible trowel work, contemporary edge.
The trowel is deliberately left in the surface. Overlapping spatula facets catch light at grazing angles, giving a graphic, architectural finish that suits contemporary interiors and large open walls.
05 · Rome, quarried travertine
Stratified Roman stone, in plaster.
Built up in horizontal strata with a fine open pore, replicating cut travertine. It carries real physical texture, so it holds shadow on its own without needing dramatic lighting.
06 · Roman wax technique
Beeswax burnished into the lime.
A Marmorino or Stucco base finished with hot beeswax and buffed by hand. The wax sinks into the lime and lifts the colour to a deep, almost liquid glow — the richest of the traditional finishes.
07 · Italian sand-effect stucco
Suede softness with a mica shimmer.
Fine silica and mica suspended in a lime binder give a suede-like surface that shimmers gently as you move past it. The quietest finish in the range and the most tactile.
08 · Tuscany, 17th century
Hand-drawn marble, veined by eye.
The most demanding of the Italian arts: pigmented gypsum and lime worked wet so that veining is drawn through the body of the material, then polished to a mirror. Reserved for panels, fire surrounds and statement inserts.
09 · Modern Italian metallic stucco
Champagne, bronze and pewter lustre.
A polished Venetian base carrying fine metallic pigment, so the wall shifts between champagne, bronze or pewter as you move past it. The most requested finish for feature walls, bars and media rooms.
010 · Contemporary Italian concrete effect
Poured-concrete calm, without the weight.
A lime and micro-aggregate build that reads as smooth poured concrete, with soft grey clouding and faint trowel drift. Hugely popular in modern kitchens, bathrooms and open-plan extensions.
011 · Tuscan and Venetian villa walls
An old Italian wall, made new.
Layered lime worked back and softly distressed so the wall carries the warm patina of an old villa. Ochres, sienna and lime-washed creams that feel like they have always been there.
012 · Fine Italian lime skim
The quiet, modern lime wall.
An ultra-fine lime skim with gentle cloud and no visible trowel line — the understated finish behind most contemporary limewash-look interiors, and the easiest to live with in a whole house.
