How many things there are to say about this fireplace, which, as modest as it is sympathetic, has a load of History like few other marbles in the world. Let us get to know it together, point by point, if you like…
Let's start with the marble out of which it was carved: If you ever looked for news about our "Yellow Flowering Marble," no one could give you any...
It, in fact, “originated” (translated: “was quarried”) on Spanish soil and specifically, in the province of Valencia.
It was of a beautiful yellow tone with subtle red veins (iron oxides), its yellow color not too obtrusive and not too “drab,” in short, it appeared to buyers captivating, sympathetic, in a word, pleasing to the eye. Among colored marbles, soon this marble was among the most in demand, equal to the pink or rose color. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this vein ran out, and the same quarry began producing another “similar” marble, the one we all know today as Crema Valencia. The color tone “appears a little lighter, the stain decidedly wider and, consequently, the ferrous lattice wider as well. It is a fine marble too, son, mind you, but it is no longer the same; “our Giallo Fiorito” is now catalogued among the Ancient Marbles.
Who carved this fireplace, and where?!
What a hurry, let's first talk about the journey it took to get to the sculptor who was supposed to bring it to life: The Giallo Fiorito marble, once extracted from the quarry, was cut into slabs (sawed by hand, eh, since we couldn't find a power socket, everything was done by hand..) by a long toothed blade moved up and down by 2 or 4 (it depended..) sturdy workers. Then these slabs were stuffed into wooden crates and packed with straw. At last they would arrive at the port of Valencia and there embarked for shipment to the ports of Nice or Marseilles.. At the port, once unloaded, the crates were placed on the platform of a wagon pulled by mules and taken to the many sculptors in those two cities who would then build the actual fireplace. The possibility of transporting the marbles by sea (WITH COSTS ENORMOUSLY LOWER THAN THOSE OF TRANSPORT BY LAND) greatly encouraged the spread of this marble and the production of sculptures of this type.
Why does this Modillon cost so little?!
It would seem to be a crude question, perhaps with an equally crude answer and instead. Instead, this question gives me the cue to give you a little lecture (how presumptuous of me.. .) on the History of the fireplace: Once upon a time, in France... there was a very good and very serious state administrator named Haussmann (we had, in Italy, of Haussmanns, we would be the richest people in the world!!), who was commissioned by Emperor Louis Napoleon III to destroy the center of Paris in order to remake it completely and modernly. Once everything had been destroyed, it was a matter of rebuilding the demolished area to give back housing to the bourgeoisie from whom it had been taken (basically the Champs Elysées and many of the current streets that departed from that avenue were made, a no-brainer). And this is where our Modillon enters the stage!!! We wrote above that our Haussmann was a proba person and it was true, so much so that, when it came time to equip new houses with one or more fireplaces, to save his employer (Emperor Louis Napoleon III) he had his employer (Emperor Louis Napoleon III) equip the new houses with a myriad of Modillons, models that cost little (it was easy to make them) and above all, they could be created in France without resorting to the sculpture workshops of Italian Lunigiana. He had so many of them assembled that, even today, if you ever pointed to a Parisian a little advanced in age a Modillon fireplace and asked him ... “what is it called?”, you would hear him answer ... “Cheminée Haussmannienne”!!! In short, this model is, along with the legendary Pompadour Plat mantel, among the best known and most built in the homeland. SUMMING UP, OUR MODILLON, BOTH BECAUSE OF ITS LOW PRICE OF CONSTRUCTION AND BECAUSE OF THE CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF SCULPTURED MANTELS, IS AMONG THE LOWEST COST FIREPLACES CURRENTLY ON THE MARKET.
PARIS, NEAR MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY ERA, PERFECT PRESERVATION.
