MONUMENTAL EMPIRE-STYLE MANTEL (WHILE IT WAS BEING CARVED, A GARIBALDI STILL IN SWADDLING CLOTHES EMITTED HIS FIRST WAILS) IN “PIERRE MARBRIERE TURQUIN” (PYRENEAN QUARRY) WITH CARRARA WHITE CAPITALS AND SIDEBURNS, EXCELLENT OVERALL PRESERVATION, PROVENANCE PROVENCE.
INTRODUCTION:
THIS IS AN “AMATEUR” FIREPLACE, NOT EASY TO UNDERSTAND BECAUSE IT IS VERY “SIMPLE” OR, IF YOU PREFER, VERY “MINIMALIST.”
I WRITE THIS BECAUSE OTHERWISE WHAT IS WRITTEN BELOW WILL APPEAR TO YOU TO BE AN EXAGGERATION WHEN IN FACT IT IS A REALITY, ALBEIT FROM THE HEART.
AND THE HEART, YOU CANNOT COMMAND.
What I am about to tell you seems like a fairy tale, and instead it is reality, beautiful, charming, elegant, very pleasant reality, one of those things worth living for, and working for.. Maybe that “work” clashes with it, at least in my case, since I would pay, to be able to continue doing what others call “my job,” and I wouldn't give it up even for all the gold of an Arabian sultan... Basically, my life is a kind of never-ending fairy tale, or rather, an uninterrupted sequence of fantastic stories, like the one I am telling you now and whose protagonist is the fireplace that is the subject of this commentary:
Daniel is perhaps the “oldest” of the French collectors who monthly unearth for me a few fireplaces that they then put aside while waiting for the arrival of my van.. As a character in a fairy tale he is...very apt.... Daniel, in fact, has a story that alone would deserve a book.... His nickname is “Zig,” a word that for the French is equivalent to “Good Man” or “Right Man”-the right hero for a fairy tale, in short..
Of a very lean physique that looks like a herring and of very small height, he retains in his eyes of almost eighty years of age a sparkle that instills in you, immediately, confidence, as only happens in the men of yesteryear, a genius now and unfortunately almost entirely disappeared...
He recently ended up on television, interviewed because of his partisan past and for having been part, in the immediate postwar period, of the founders of the Parisian flea market (he sold “Militaria”), today the most important in the world (as many as 3,000 antique stores all together, incredible!!).
But soon, fortunately for me, Zig devoted himself to the passion that then happily engulfed his life: Antique fireplaces.
Getting back to the story of our fireplace, a few weeks ago Zig, who was on vacation on the French Riviera but even there was looking for fireplaces instead of staying with his wife lounging on a lounger, calls me.... I hear him excitedly and between the very quick phrases of his gramelot (but why do the French speak so fast?!) I can perceive “Cannes”... “Empire”... “Exceptionnel”... But mostly I can tell from his eagerness that he is in front of an important find.... He called me because he would like to buy it, this mantel, but... he doesn't have enough money in his pocket (he is renovating his apartment in Montmartre and has now passed out for it..)...
However, he has never betrayed me and I trust his nose completely, so I confirm to him that I will leave right away, let him then go to the owner and give him the deposit he can give him, that fireplace, whatever it is, I will buy it.
In the night I make the trip to Cannes, and in the morning I am, with Daniel, in front of a wonderful building on one of the transversals of the Promenade.... We ring, they open the door for us, and while I am searching with my eyes for the elevator, Daniel waves me to wait, the fireplace is not in the apartment, but in the “cave...” In the cellar?!“Oui,” Daniel tells me, and explains that that fireplace has been in that cellar perhaps for more than thirty years, since a renovation forced the former owner to disassemble it....
The one we've been waiting for arrives, and we go down a few steps into an underground world that only in coastal towns seems to exist... Garages and “caves” (cellars) to no end, even under the streets....
So we go down, and as we take those steps the air becomes warmer and more reassuring.... The man who is with us, at the end, opens the door to a large room in which dust reigns supreme, and in the dim light of an equally ancient light bulb, my trained and eager eyes immediately see the little treasure that a harried Zig had told me about on the phone: It is the most beautiful REAL Empire fireplace (vintage, eh..) that I have seen in the last five years and one of the most interesting Empire fireplaces of my life!
It is disassembled, leaning against an antique oak beam stored there in case one needs to... I have already seen that its parts are all there, it is almost immaculate, in short well preserved, just needs to be reassembled and some marginal plastering....
Now that I am calm on the front of its integrity I can devote a few moments to savoring its beauty.... It is a magical moment, this one, worth a Mecca, and one that I enjoy in religious silence...I caress those Statuary capitals that seem to offer themselves to my touches, and those columns, turned and tapered, even caress that block with the smooth and clean surfaces (architecturally speaking because there will be an inch of dust..) that of the fireplace constitutes the floor and frontispiece... I'm not a fetishist, but I can't help but also brush against the rounded feet (the bases of the columns..), so finely carved...
I pay for and load, together with Zig and one of his helpers (the fireplace has parts of about two quintals..), those blocks that an ancient sculptor brought to life in that distant 1810-20, I will have time, at home, to enjoy this turquoise splendor, I will have time to witness its rebirth, when, moment by moment, I will put those now-divided parts back together and restore to them that unity they had, so many decades ago, lost..
The tale ends with a conversation (which none of my companions heard..) that took place between me and those marbles just as we were loading them into my van, a conversation that, more or less, went like this:
Maurizio (in a calm and persuasive manner...): “I know, in that cellar you were not sick, you were quiet, in the warmth, and maybe you even felt protected.... I know that now I may appear to you as the Black Ogre who in every self-respecting fola kidnaps children and takes them away, but... it is not so, I only want your good, and I will cure you, I will make you see the light, and I will give you a master who will warm you and take care of you.... Fear not, I am not the evil ogre..”
The Marbles (a little reassured ..): “Really, Maurizio, you are going to do this? Uhmm .. we are already beginning to believe it ... What a beautiful light, you know, it's been a long time since we've seen it.... Maurizio, we believe you, we want to believe you, after all we were beginning to get bored in that darkness and silence ... But you must promise us one thing, that you will find us a master who loves us, OK! A master who appreciates our clean, minimalist lines, and also our pains, due to a good two centuries of life. Will you promise us?!”
Maurizio (now more in confidence..): “Of course, I will not sell you to the first comer, I will evaluate together with you the suitors to your hand, and until we find the right person, the one who can completely understand and appreciate you, you will stay with me, I swear!!!”
