ESSENTIAL PREMISE:
IF I FIND WHOEVER TOOK THESE PHOTOGRAPHS WITH A COUNTER HEARTH INSIDE THE NOBLE BELLY OF OUR VERY ANCIENT “GRIFFE DE LION,” I AM MAKING AN ABSURDITY...(BUT IT SEEMS NONE OF THE SUSPECTS TOOK THEM, THEY ARE PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS SINCE THEY MATERIALIZED AND SNEAKED INTO THE SITE ON THEIR OWN).
ANYWAY, PENDING THE REPLACEMENT OF THESE IMAGES WITH MORE APPROPRIATE (AND MAYBE EVEN BETTER DONE) ONES, KNOW THAT THAT CAST-IRON INSERT EFFIGYED HERE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FIREPLACE IN QUESTION.
CHARLES X OR LATE EMPIRE FIREPLACE AS IT MAY BE (1835-40 ERA) IN YELLOW FLORAL MARBLE OF GREAT HOMOGENEITY AND SUPERB PATINA, PROVENANCE PARIS, EXCELLENT PRESERVATION, PRICE SUGGESTING THAT WE STOLE IT AT NIGHT...
It's true, it takes luck in life.... Maybe you buy a ticket at the autogrill (you've never done it in your life, who knows why you ever bought it ..) and you win at the enalotto, or you meet the right person and from one moment to the next you find yourself equal opportunity minister (it happened, eh ..)... However, luck, you also have to know how to catch it on the fly, it hardly touches us more than a few times in life, as in the case of this ancient fireplace ...
He (woe to those who dare to call it “it”..) is one of the oldest fireplaces on the market, since it dates to the first half of the nineteenth century and authentic antique fireplaces of the eighteenth century one has the “luck” to find them mostly in the stores of certain forgers ( if you need some names, come and see me, and I will perhaps give you the complete list, at least of the Italian ones..). In this regard I would like to tell you what I discovered while browsing perhaps the most important antiques portal in Italy (I will give the address to those who are interested and also the printout of the relevant pages in case these have been deleted in the meantime..): At the section “antique fireplaces of the 1500s” there are no less than two “Salvator Rosa” fireplaces presented by as many antique dealers... For one of the two fireplaces, the antiquarian writes in the description “dated year 1590...” He is demure, not wanting to exaggerate.... The second antiquarian, on the other hand, simply writes “fireplace from the 500s” (maybe it is from 1501, who knows..)... At that point, my amazement grows, for a lifetime, in fact, I had always thought that the creator of that frame (which, moreover, was born as a picture frame and became a fireplace thanks to the Ateliers des Arts of Louis XIV, who had understood its great innovative and stylistic force...) in fact, I said, I had always thought that the creator of that frame, the very famous Neapolitan painter Salvator Rosa, was working in the mid-seventeenth century. And then I run to my encyclopedia and discover that I was not wrong, said painter, in fact, was born in 1615 !!!
So, even assuming that this multifaceted and in his own way futurist artist came up with the frame that will be named after him while he was in swaddling clothes, how did those two emblazoned antiquarians manage to find these two SALVATOR ROSA FIREPLACES FROM THE FIFTY-FIVETH CENTURY !?! Well, I'm still wondering....
Well, getting back to us, and after trying to warn you about the overly ancient dating that often abounds in the antiquarian trade regarding antique mantels (on furniture I don't put a tongue in cheek, I admit that I am a novice and only have love for fireplaces, antique... ), I assert that it is very, very difficult to be lucky enough to come across authentic eighteenth-century fireplaces, and I urge you to believe me when I tell you that the fireplace I am presenting here is among the oldest fireplaces you can find on the market, in Italy and in Europe.. If you then consider it well, you will find that it is of medium size and therefore will fit very well into our modern “living rooms” (which are never a parade ground..), that it is most charming because of its great patina and then, why not, it has a price that is really one to be grabbed... As for the fortune that is now passing you by...
