Since the commentary that will follow will be more about the comic/discursive than the serious, I immediately make aTECHNICAL-STORICAL PREMISE so that you can get to know better the fireplace that will be narrated about in the actual “commentary.”
This mantel, placed in both the Louis XVI and Louis XIV sections as it is basically a fantastic melange of these two stylistic schools, has two important features, moreover exclusively peculiar to this specific fireplace:
A) Although it is basically a “poor” fire surround, a sort of ugly duckling without too much architectural pretension or decorative load, usually required to adorn a bedroom and not a reception hall, well, despite its alleged “poverty,” ours is dressed, incredibly, in a marble fabric reserved for the world's most important sculptures, a Carrara Statuary of the highest quality and unsurpassed purity, thus transforming itself, magically, into a candid Swan;
B) Not content with his previous miraculous genetic mutation, he also equips himself with a triptych of bronze decorations, the most important of which depicts the face of Louis XIV, the Sun King, here aptly depicted in the rays he is emanating.
NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS IN A “PARISIAN,” IT'S REALLY TRUE THAT ... IT'S A SIN TO DIE!
THIS FIREPLACE MANTEL WAS BORN IN PARIS IN THE LATE 19TH CENTURY AND IS IN VERY GOOD CONDITION.
REAL COMMENT:
A few nights ago, at the Arena in Cattolica (first show after quarantine) I saw a show by Giacobazzi that was definitely laugh-out-loud funny..
Well, this free-range performer is to be considered a fine connoisseur of the female world, especially of that part of the feminine world that are wives.
The other night he enlightened us on a concept that males all over the globe often pretend not to know..
The principle is this:
Why does the husband see everything as simple while the wife always complicates everything?
Why is it that the husband, who in his quiet life would also be content with little, is always forced to try to solve problems that his wife incessantly poses to him?
But it is simple (nice strength, Giacobazzi just told you!!): The man has two (say two) neurons in his head, one of which is generally a slacker....
The woman (read “the wife”..), on the other hand, seems to have a few thousand, of neurons, all constantly buzzing and busy studying how to subdue her husband as well as creating daily abuse for him..
You will say. “but what does Giacobazzi's little story have to do with this fireplace with the catchy nickname ‘Parisienne’?”
It has everything to do with it!
To her husband, in fact, once she decided on the purchase (she decided it, eh, he just said... “Yes, dear, you're right, only a fireplace like this can fit in our house..”) I was saying... ah, yes, to the husband, in fact, once he had decided to buy a Carrara White marble fireplace, any White would suffice, what do I know, an “ordinary” White, or, at most, a White “Pure”....all white marbles that are less famous and economically less onerous than the Carrara Statuary and which would therefore entail a normal or, at any rate, smaller expense..
But the wife is not okay with this, absolutely NO.. let alone, once he has decided on the Statuary, so it must be, whatever the cost.. (nice strength, he pays for it!!).
And so it happens that this wife (aided by a host of interior design magazines whose journalists seem to be paid to ruin their readers' husbands) decides that the best White in the world, the most fascinating and almost magical one, is, precisely, the mythical marble favored by Buonarroti Michelangiolo (who, however, let us remember, managed the Pope's wallet, not that of her poor husband here..).
The fact is that there will be a few dozen fireplaces in this particular White Michelangelo style on the market all over Europe, of which only a small number are in the Neoclassical style.. And she, your sadistic wife, what is she looking for if not a fireplace in Statuary and also belonging to the noble Neoclassical family?
Couldn't she be content with a less expensive Louis Philippe?
Not a chance, she really wants the most expensive marble and the rarest stylism, otherwise, how would she look to her friends?
Whatever, I'm out of space, to you husbands I say that although you have the misfortune of being married, today you may have stumbled upon an unexpected fortune: In fact this wonderful and perfect fireplace between Louis XVI and Louis XIV in candid Statuario Carrara marble you can have it at a much lower price than the market generally offers, a fact due to our good (if not exceptional...) purchase, in short you will have made a real investment, not to mention the fact that your wife will be remarkably grateful and for a few days at least she will smile at you without gnashing her canines, what more do you want?!?!
Besides, take a good look at it, don't you find it refined and originally distinguished!?
