This particular model of the large family of “Larchers” fireplaces is the one that, in its time, has been the most successful.
It may be that children are a pleasant subject, it may be that said children are playing, warming up and enjoying themselves in the warmth of a small fire, it may be what it may be, but it is certain that, in the championship of cast-iron fireplaces of art, the shield of liking was won by this specimen of the large and important Larcher family.
Incidentally, this mantel is among the very few that bears the signature (“L. Larcher Paris”) of the most important of the sons of the progenitor Larcher, who was already an excellent sculptor as a boy.
Another interesting thing, the fact that this fireplace has a marble top (strictly Noir Marquinia”, Basque and Pyrenean provenance, never would a Parisian like Larcher have bought, for his fireplaces, Black marble from Belgium from his hated cousins..) leads us to think that this fireplace was cast in the last 10 years of the 19th century. In that early period, in fact, cast-iron fireplaces were perhaps too “strong” a novelty, perhaps too far removed from the tastes and customs of that period, and so, the first cast-iron fireplaces were fitted with a marble top, so that the habit of the French of filling that marble top with clocks, statuettes, pictures, flowers (and what have you), at least that one, would not be interrupted or distorted by a “vulgar” cast-iron top.
It also seems fair to make an “economic” point:
The price of this fireplace, which is, moreover, of great and no longer outdated casting quality, corresponds, more or less, to the cost of the counter hearth alone.. Wanting to be vulgar, we could say, "The fireplace is for free!!!" But that would be a lie, no one gives away, we say that we, in this case, “make do.”
