How many loves have I experienced in my already long life... One each time a fireplace (it would be more correct to write “a mantelpiece”..) has made my heart flutter... As even now I do with this splendid and so rare nineteenth-century Louis XIV mantel... You must know that this style was, in the nineteenth century, practically forgotten in all favor of Louis XV and XVI fireplaces... The legendary Boudin (important and famous mid-nineteenth century Provençal builder) tried to revive interest in this style, but... his autarky and lack of French sculptors forced him to limit himself to the simplest and most minimalist models.
And so to find Louis XIV fireplace mantels of any value or of important decorative richness on the market is very difficult.
After this minimal love-historical-stylistic background, let us come to our fireplace:
I believe that the first feeling one gets upon seeing it consists of an impression of strength and power... Mind you, it is not an “impression,” it is really (and this was due to constructional situations that I will not talk about here so as not to bore you, but which I will tell those interested in its purchase..), it is really, I said, that its marble parts have important thicknesses. In fact, they are not “slabs” (as is commonly the case, perhaps in 95% of cases) but real solid “blocks.” In short, for the same model, this was built with about three times the amount commonly used.
Then you sense how its design is rather unusual, yet elegant.
Here: Elegance and Strength are the general and most obvious characteristics of this fireplace.
Going then down to examine its decorations, they too 'lead us to consider how they are very little “seen,” unlike the Louis XV or Louis XVI fireplaces, which, because of their considerable spread, have accustomed us to their carvings...
I have no more space to write, so I go to its “technical” notes:
WE RECOVERED IT IN PROVENCE, IT IS REALLY OF STRONG PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION, IT WILL HAVE TO UNDERGO VERY FEW MAKE-UP INTERVENTIONS AND NOT IN IMPORTANT PARTS, INTERVENTIONS THAT WE WILL PERFORM AFTER THE SALE AND BEFORE DELIVERY, SO THAT THE BUYER CAN SEE IT, ENJOY IT AND EVALUATE IT IN THE STATE OF ITS FINDING.
THE AGE OF ITS SCULPTURE IS TO BE DATED AROUND THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY (1840-60).
ADVICE NO. 64 TO ACCOMPANYING HUSBANDS:
Marisa (your wife) and Mario (you), you have been wandering around in the Artis warehouse for an hour or so now (ed. note: so far beyond the endurance capabilities of Mario, who can last three hours straight in front of the television set airing a Juve game, even a very boring one, but after twenty minutes of “store with wife” he is exhausted and is thinking that perhaps he had better file for divorce . .) and here Marisa blurts out with a “Listen, Mario, between this Bleu Turquin fireplace and the one in Carrara White, YOU, which do you prefer?!” (she was about to say “You, which would you prefer?”, knowing full well that the Mario has no choice, but quick-minded as only females are, she decides not to offend her own scaly half and make him believe that his is an actual request for an opinion).
Mario feels a cold shiver run down his spine... “Whatever you want, honey...” he stammers instead of searching for an answer that makes some logical sense...
“Sorry, Mario, but do you prefer the turquoise one or the white one?”
Mario squints his eyes in desperate search for a quick and consistent answer (which, as had happened before, does not even come to him to die...) and after a few interminable seconds and with an evidently nervous manner replies to Marisa with a (completely random choice and said without any conviction) “...The white one...”
“Why! What's wrong with the turquoise one! Is the immediate and reproachful response of his sweet half....
Then the Mario, in a glare (pale, eh..) of residual manhood, responds to the virago at his side with. “But if you didn't want my opinion, why did you ask for it!
AND EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL, CERTAINLY THE EVENING WILL NOT END POSITIVELY FOR MARIO, WHO, INSTEAD, SHOULD HAVE BEHAVED AS SCRIPTED BELOW, THAT IS, GOING ON THE ATTACK:
Marisa: “Listen, Mario, between this Bleu Turquin fireplace and the one in Carrara White, YOU, which do you prefer?!”
Mario: “ Do you already have an idea, dear?”
Marisa (she is taken aback, expecting the usual useless as well as random preference of her little boy and instead she is forced to give an answer herself..): “But yes, I would have an idea.... The turquoise one goes well with the curtains we have in the room and also with the Caleffi slipcover that I still have to flatten, which has borders in a velvet of the same tone..”
Mario (with concluding lunge à la D'Artagnan): “Great choice!!! It will look great in our room with that fireplace! I liked it before, too, this fireplace, but now that you've explained these combinations, I seem to have fallen in love with it!”
THIS VERSION OF MARIO, REST ASSURED, WILL HAVE A WONDERFUL EVENING, WITH AFTER-DINNER CERTAINTY SUCH AS HE HASN'T HAD IN A LONG TIME...
