In order to better understand (and it will not be complicated at all, on the contrary...) the stylism of the Louis XIV fireplace that I am presenting here, I would ask you, before you start reading the commentary, to go to the last published photograph, where you will see a Louis XIV style fireplace from Versailles.
You will immediately see how the architecture/structure of the Versailles fireplace is the same (IT IS IDENTICAL) as our fireplace. The only (negligible, so to speak) difference lies in the fact that while our mantel IS IN THE STYLE OF Louis XIV, the Versailles mantel IS ANTIQUE XIV (more Antique than it, there is none). As you can see, decorating the Versailles fireplace are clusters of gilded bronzes, of wooden mantels also gilded, of paintings, of incrustations in very rare marbles, of marble floors also marble floors, while our Louis XIV is much less vain and is presented for what the Louis XIV style is and wanted to be in the nineteenth century, that is, Cleanliness, softness, seriousness, harmony of lines, all and always without exaggeration.
You will ask me (ask me or we won't go on with the commentary...) “But how come, Maurizio, the Versailles fireplace, except for its structural lines, doesn't even seem related to the one you are presenting to us, so, softly Serious while the other one looks like a goldsmith's showcase full to the ceiling!?"
Ah... well... your comparison does not hold up, unless you believe that time stood still from about 1690 (birth of the Palace of Versailles) until the mid-nineteenth century (birth of “our” fireplace). In between there is the eighteenth century (century of Enlightenment and Reason), the French Revolution (with the guillotine to decimate crowns) and, dulcis in fundo, Napoleon Bonaparte, in short, Louis XIV stylism loses all those exaggerated and disturbing bigotries it had at its birth and. REBORN, as I wrote above... clean, soft, serious but harmonious in its lines, composed and NEVER exaggerated. If it is true that, as you may already know, fireplaces are divided into males and females, WELL, OUR LOUIS XIV IS, WITHOUT A DOUBT, AN ALPHA MALE, who does not need the gilded affastery of his ancestor, but retains the physique and strength of that.
HIS MARBLE IS A CHOICE OF MARQUINIA BLACK FINELY VEINED WITH WHITE, IN MY OPINION (WHICH IS ALSO YOUR WIFE'S OPINION..) THE FINEST CHOICE WITHIN THE PYRENEAN MARBLE FAMILY.
FOUND IN BURGUNDY, PERFECT PRESERVATION, CIRCA 1840-60 ERA.
