BEAUTIFUL "GRAPPE DE RAISIN” FIREPLACE IN ITS ART DECO VERSION CARVED IN A FASCINATING “TROVANTE" ** OF SIENA YELLOW MARBLE OR A PYRENEAN MARBLE (THE QUARRY IS NOT SURVEYED, SO WE GO BY SUPPOSITION) WITH INCRUSTATIONS OF VERY FINE AS ALWAYS VERY ELEGANT VIOLET BRECCIA. PROVENANCE PARIS, PERIOD 1925-35, PERFECT PRESERVATION.
The “Grappe de raisin” is a decoration that can be found (not that it is easy, but it is possible..) in all styles of fireplaces, particularly in more properly Art Nouveau (or Art Nouveau as you like..) fireplaces, but also in Louis XV and Louis XVI fireplaces.. Often it was the patron who requested its carving, and not because he was a dedicated drunkard, but as a vintner by trade or a wine producer or merchant, who knows?. In the good old days, in fact, it was quite in vogue to show others (friends, relatives and acquaintances in general) one's membership in a profession, guild or consortium..
Perhaps you will not be interested, but I, in the course of my nearly forty years of work among antique fireplaces, have had specimens with five-pointed stars (and in this case the membership that was desired to be publicly demonstrated was that of Freemasonry..), with hammer and tongs (Blacksmiths' Guild), with the cocoon of the silkworm (Silkmakers' Guild) or, indeed, with a vine shoot or grape cluster (Vignerons)..
** WHAT IS THE “FINDER” ?!
Well, to so appell a block or boulder from a surveyed and well-known quarry that, however, does not have the identical characteristics of the rest of the quarry.. Sort of like when a ceramic tile line “comes out” of a batch with a slightly different tone than the one intended in the catalog..
Only here there is no “human error,” but the Beauty of Nature, always ready to surprise us with its happy madness. Moreover (NOTE TO THE GENOVESE) a fireplace built with marble from a “finding” block is, INDUBLY, much but much rarer than its brethren carved in more conforming and easily found marble.
