At my ripe old age by now I no longer thought that I would get another and such a powerful... “thunderbolt,” indeed, a double thunderbolt, because the fireplace I present here also has a twin, a unique pair, not the subject of a ‘mass’ production (however limited the series were at the time) but commissioned by an undoubtedly wealthy (VERY wealthy) private individual specifically for the very large reception room of his apartment on avenue Rapp, a pretty Parisian street between avenue Bosquet and avenue de l'Université, in a corner of Paris where there are several Art Nouveau buildings (it is worth going to that little Parisian paradise if you are a lover of Pure Art Nouveau, before, that is, it transpired into the more generic “Art Nouveau”).
Let us see together the “physical-artistic” characteristics, of this mantel:
Its marble is Italian Bardiglio (Apuan Alps, Lunigiana) although the name given to it by the French is “Bleu Turquin.” However, we have to say that those who chose it to carve this fireplace had VERY good taste and among the many quarries of this marble (which range from a dark gray color to lighter tones, plain or full of black veined grids) they chose a quality of marble of a very light Gray (so light that at times it seems to transmigrate into White), barely hinted at and, a very classy touch, with white veins, also very light, almost as if they were “under the skin.” Personally, this is the first time I have seen this tone of gray so “light” in a Bardiglio fireplace.
I feel it is necessary to make a clarification regarding the name of its marble, and I begin by saying that given the enormous variety of “shades” and the relative impossibility of giving a thousand names to the same marble family, it becomes essential to divide each type of fireplace, into two or three “subfamilies.” In the case of Bardiglio marble, we basically have two major “subfamilies”: The Imperial Bardiglio (the darkest) and the Light Bardiglio (the lightest, of course). But since in the world sphere, by the time of Napoleon's days (early nineteenth century) the marketing of this marble was in the hands of the French and the French sold it as Bleu Turquin, it happened that light Bardiglio (the most in demand and marketed) took the name Bardiglio Turchino...
Its physical structure, its architecture, in short, since there is no specific “Art Nouveau architecture”, is a nice mixture of Louis XIV stylism (see the legs all turned to the front and see the platform that unfolds all the way with a single overhanging curvature in the center of the platform itself) and Louis XV stylism (see the classic curves of the front and the use of the decoration proper to Louis XV, namely the shell. Remember that this style was also called “Rocaille,” a word that means -also- “shell” in French).
Of “marine”, there is much in the sculptural decorations of our mantel.... In addition to the central shell (which, it must be said, is inspired by the classic “Coquille Bordelaise,” a classic interpretation devised by a Bordeaux “designer,” precisely, a few decades before the construction of our fireplace) in addition to the central shell, I said, there is that pair of shells (this time completely original and never seen otherwise) affixed to the legs. But this is not the end of the marine contribution to the decoration of our fireplace: Look at those leafy branches carved on the sides of the front, they are nothing but marine vegetation that is cradled following the soft movement of the currents, precisely... marine.
Well, finished with the maritime aspect, there could be no lack of flowers in an Art Nouveau fireplace... Let us always remember that this stylism, at first, in Italy and elsewhere, was named “Floral Art.”
I must say that the person who designed and designed this fireplace had a simple soul and good thoughts in his head, so much so that, in place of so many varieties of very rare and complicated flowers, he chose to distribute a little everywhere, a few small bouquets of only periwinkle, a flower “of the field” and therefore poor, but only apparently poor because the meaning of periwinkle is Friendship, the true and lasting one. A great and very noble meaning that, after all, also becomes a wish for Friendship addressed to the owners of this mantelpiece.
ITS BIRTH IS TO BE DATED TO THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY, OF THE PLACE OF ORIGIN WE HAVE WRITTEN ABOVE, THERE REMAINS ONLY THE DOUBT ABOUT ITS SCULPTURAL REALIZATION (THIS TIME NOT ITALIAN) THAT I WOULD SAY PERFORMED IN SOME WORKSHOP OF THE ÎLE DE FRANCE. ITS PRESERVATION IS OPTIMAL.
