Figure, colour, grain direction, book-matching.
6 answers are written under this subject. 6 answered so far.
Because the mineral banding in this bed formed as long parallel layers, and the same shape that gives wood its grain gives this marble its figure. The lines are in the rock, not on it, and they run in the direction the block was cut.
Because a straight figure repeats without announcing it. A dramatic figure is judged as a feature and dates when the room is refitted; a straight figure reads as a material and is still there in ten years. It is the reason a wood-grain stone exists.
The lines are the same all day; what changes is how deep they read. Under a raking light the relief of the bedding catches the light and the figure is at its strongest; under flat, diffuse light it goes quiet and the surface reads as a tone.
Three colourways and three figures. Dark coffee is the deepest and the most strongly banded; light coffee is a pale warm beige with a soft figure; dark grey is cooler and higher in contrast. They are three boards, not three shades of one.
Because the slab was cut across the bed rather than along it, and the bedding that reads as parallel lines along the bed reads as concentric arcs or rings when it is cut the other way. It is the same stone, sawn the other way round.
Because the bed is not one colour. The quarry face shows the coffee bed beside white wood grain, grey wood grain and two elegant black beds, and the three boards are three readings of the coffee family rather than one board photographed three ways.
Ordered by how many questions each one holds.