Bargain antique fireplaces
BEAUTIFUL "TROIS COQUILLES" FIREPLACE IN CARRARA WHITE MARBLE, SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY, PROVENANCE PARIS BUT CARVED IN CARRARA (ITALY), GOOD PRESERVATION, EXCEPT FOR SOME SIGNS OF TIME (ALMOST INVISIBLE AND HOWEVER WELL "TAMED" BY OUR RESTORER BEFORE DELIVERY TO THE LUCKY BUYER) ON THE SHELF.
Do you know what comes to my mind as I begin this commentary?
To the coat that the then Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi borrowed from his party colleague (Piccioni, if I remember correctly..) on the occasion of his trip to America that would lead him to a meeting with U.S. President Harry Truman.. This meeting allowed Italy to enjoy a loan of 100 million dollars (a figure that, in those days, would have made even that vainglorious Iron Mask pale in comparison ), 100 MILLION with which Italy recovered, and well, since there was soon talk of an ECONOMIC MIRACLE!!! GOOD THING TRUMAN WAS NOT CALLED TRAMP!!!
WHAT HAS IT GOT TO DO, MAURIZIO, WITH THE GOOD DE GASPERI'S COAT WITH YOUR ANTIQUE FIREPLACES!!!
It has something to do with it, that's right....
You must know that the honest Italian politician in question (it makes me a little upset to juxtapose the adjective “honest” with the words of “Italian politician”, it seems an impossible thing to have, the moon in the well, and yet it was so, our Alcide was so honest that he was publicly esteemed even by Togliatti! !) you must know, I was saying, that De Gasperi was to meet the most powerful man in the world and was on his way to the airport when... when someone pointed out to him that his coat was a little... frayed... a little ragged and not at all elegant...
On the elegance the Alcide immediately glossed over, it was no big deal for him to be in Caraceni's double-breasted coat, indeed...
But he had to agree that the coat, which he was so fond of that he had been wearing it for at least twenty years, was perhaps a little too “worn...”
So he let himself be persuaded to change it, but-but not to buy another one, the Alcide, that lived-in coat, would immediately wear it again when he returned from America.... So his Party colleague Pigeons (who was about the same size..) took off his and lent it to him.
Here, this fireplace is “lived in” no more and no less than De Gasperi's coat, and for that very reason it must be treated as a precious thing, to be cherished even when it shows some signs of having lived its life.
NOTE OF MARCH 22, 2025, thirty days after the above commentary was published:
THE FIREPLACE HAS ALREADY BEEN RESTORED AND I MYSELF CAN'T SEE ANY TRACE OF THE “LIVED-IN SCRATCHES” THAT WERE ON ITS FLOOR....
WHAT DO I DO, SINCE WE HAD DISCOUNTED IT FOR THESE TWO SCRATCHES AND NOW THOSE SCRATCHES ARE NO LONGER THERE, DO I RAISE THE PRICE ??
NO, A GIVEN WORD, MUST BE RESPECTED, A MAN IS ONLY AS GOOD AS HIS WORD, SO HIS PRICE WILL BE KEPT AND WHOEVER ARRIVES FIRST, THE BETTER WILL STAY, IF WE CONSIDER THAT A SIMILAR FIREPLACE, IN EXCELLENT CONDITION (AS EVEN THIS MANTEL NOW IS...) AT THE VERY LEAST COSTS AT LEAST 2000 (TWO THOUSAND) EUROS MORE...
