FASCINATING LOUIS PHILIPPE “DIAMOND TIP” FIREPLACE MANTEL IN PRECIOUS BLACK PORTORO GOLD MARBLE.
HOW STRANGE THE WORLD IS...
Now I'm thinking about the fact that until a few years ago (15 OR 20 YEARS AGO ..), Portoro marble fireplaces were easier to get hold of ... and I used to buy them, finding them beautiful, mysterious and fascinating, with their black hell mixed with the color of gold.
I would buy them but then...I couldn't sell them, I couldn't sell them, practically no one wanted them...I didn't understand why, since they looked so beautiful to me....
The customers, when I tried to magnify the features of these fireplaces while they wanted to go ahead and see something else, would scoff like this... “But.. Maurizio, this is black!!!" (of course it is black, but what a beautiful black, my lady...)... Or “I don't like it because I find it funerary” (have you ever seen a tombstone in Portoro black? Impossible it costs too much today and it cost too much even then, this marble.... Perhaps the only one who used a little of it in his funeral mausoleum-the one he built himself in the grounds of his villa in Arcore-is Berlusca..).... “No, too black..” (and what do you answer to one who apostrophizes you like that ?!) and so on...
Today, on the other hand, since architects and interior designers all over the world, to the cry of “Women, unite!!!”have decided that black must be one of the two dominant colors of a house (the other being white), the speeches of my clients are, more or less, these:. “ Maurizio - note that the woman in question has just entered my warehouse, she has not yet seen any fireplace, however...- Maurizio, do you have any black fireplaces to show us!?”............. Or, phone call from Milan or Rome or Cortina: “Look, we'll come, but if you don't have any black fireplaces tell us right away because the architect told us that we can only fit black fireplaces...” (did the doctor advise him, to his architect? What does she do, commit suicide if she can't find one!!!? )..... “Black fireplaces kill me, tell me you have some mantels, Maurizio” (don't die, ma'am, please, or at least die for a nobler cause..)..... “ Only a black fireplace fits in my house, but... black black black, eh!!!” (will it be Frankestein's house, or maybe the lady's last name is Adams!? )..
EHH.. HOW THE WORLD CHANGES...
Now, unfortunately, I no longer have the supply of fireplaces in Nero Portoro as I had then, between exhibition and storage (THOUGH BETWEEN A THOUSAND CIRCAEXEMPLARIES) I have maybe two or three, which, probably, are more than all the mantels one could find by going to visit all the dealers in Italy, but always and only a few “pieces” between baroque or neoclassical...
All this tirade to justify the price of the mantel I am showing you here, a mantel that, if in White Carrara marble, can cost half as much as its brother in Nero Portoro.
It's the law of supply and demand, what can you do.
Anyway, it may cost a lot, but at least it is in perfect condition, was built around the mid-19th century, and comes to us from a Cannes “batiment” and not from a Chinese pantograph.
HISTORY OF PORTORO MARBLE, FROM THE ROMANS TO THE EARLY 1980S, WHEN THE QUARRIES CLOSED.
The island of Palmaria, in the Gulf of La Spezia, was once home to quarries of Portoro, a black marble with yellow-gold veins, nearly 200 million years old and highly prized; in fact, it is placed in the category of the world's most precious marbles.
The black color comes from the abundant presence of organic matter; the golden streaks, on the other hand, are due to a partial dolomitization process that has destroyed, by oxidizing it, the organic matter.
Portoro mining dates back to Roman times; this marble was later rediscovered in the 16th century by Genoese sculptor Domenico Casella, who obtained a concession from the senate of Genoa to exploit the rock.
Since then the island, which is rich in Portoro, began to be dotted with quarries.
Marble extraction on the island was more difficult than on the mainland, however, because the quarry started a few meters above sea level and then lowered to below that level; therefore it was necessary, at the beginning of each day, before work could begin, to extract the water that entered the tunnels during the night.
The most spectacular excavation is 150 meters overhanging the sea on the vertiginous western slope. Here the wall is vertical with a small flat space painstakingly carved out by the quarrymen for processing and sending the boulders that were to be shipped down there among the waves.
The very first blocks that came out of the island's quarries and the sculptors' chisel were used for the church of S. Maria alla Spezia and the palace of the Marquises of Castagnola.
In the early nineteenth century Portoro marble began to be exported to many countries in Europe and later to America; Paramount's large projection room is all lined with it!!!
The last quarry to be closed, following an ordinance issued in 1982-'83 by the Municipal Administration, concerned about the environmental degradation that had become evident, was the Caletta quarry, where the remains of equipment and remnants of freshly quarried marble can still be found.
