When I saw this Pompadour plat fireplace for the first time, to my mind (and quite spontaneously) this thought arose:
“But look. Has anyone ever seen a worker enter the workshop dressed in silk!"
Indeed, even with all the sympathy I have for this model of the second half of the nineteenth century fireplace, I have to agree how it is, objectively, “plain...”
Dignified, yes, but “poor”....
And so, why is it that the specific mantel I am now presenting to you, allows itself the luxury of dressing itself in a marble as refined as it is expensive and generally reserved for fireplaces of quite another decorative load!
The answers may be many, and the right one we will never know, but ... among the possible hypotheses, I have made my choice, would you like to know it?
Well, I think Bernard, a nineteenth-century Parisian gentleman of refined but not too “baroque” tastes, decided that for his bedroom that Pompadour fireplace would do just fine..
Beautiful and sinuous forms, decorative simplicity, medium-small size, in short, that whole thing seemed ideal for that space of his between the two windows looking over the Seine....
But Bernard, we said above, was of refined tastes... he wanted for HIS fireplace something more than “normal” marble, “normal” color, “normal” enjoyment...
The fireplace that was to decorate his bedroom would have to be “special,” possibly exciting, however out of the norm, precisely, “normal,” the cost was of relative importance, HE, was a gentleman...
So it was that our Bernard went to a Parisian fireplace Atelier, chose from the samples offered to him the most interesting marble he had ever seen.
And when this merchant explained to him that for such a fireplace he would have to wait biblical times because the quarry was not within walking distance and he of Pompadour in that precious marble he had none “at home,” Bernard replied: «Never mind, for such a beautiful fireplace, I would wait even longer, here's your deposit!!!»
Nothing and no one will take this sinful (but most pleasant) thought out of my mind: Bernard was struck by the most Immaculate Inferno Black color in the world as said color was the same as the intimate vestimenta he admired weekly at the Folies Bergere!!!
PARISIAN PROVENANCE, BELGIAN WORKMANSHIP, LATE NINETEENTH/EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY PERIOD, HEALTHY AND ROBUST PHYSIQUE.
