PREMISE TO THE COMMENTARY ON THIS CAMINO:
Despite the fact that my son Henry is very careful about the quality of the photographs (and I am sure they could not have come out better than this) I must admit that this fireplace, seen in person, is three times more fascinating.
He (the fireplace) has a mysterious and catalyzing charm, you can't imprison him in some daguerreotype, he is like a ghost that tends to elude you, as if he didn't want to be bothered by the commodification we are making of him.
INDISPENSABLE INTERLUDE TO AN OUTBURST OF MY OWN:
Yesterday, immediately after the publication of these photographs and even before I was about to complete this card with my usual commentary (which today has nothing "usual" but everything extraordinary), I received an email from an architect, who told me, paro-paro (I write it in the Roman way because Roman is our technician) that this fireplace "IS NICE"(he spelled it just like that, " NICE") "but it is not worth all that money."
Here, I, faced with this nonsense, just can't take it and, like the Fiat Puntos in the Carabinieri's possession, I gag.
I picked up the phone (not "cordless" or cell phone, eh, I still use the legendary Sirio, designed by Pininfarina and with a twist wire, and asked him if he knew the prices of the "styled" (so tospeak) fireplaces produced by almost all the modern "brands" (again, so to speak) fireplace manufacturers.
Obviously, he was not aware of this..
So I gave him pointers on the marble production of “styled” cornices from one of the largest Italian factories, precisely, of fireplaces, and explained to him (which this gentleman could easily verify) how a “stylistically/vagantly Louis XV-like” fireplace costs between 9000 and 10,000 €. The fact is that, HOWEVER, this fireplace was spit out by an almond-eyed machine, made from an also almond-eyed marble, and maybe delivered (THAT IS MASSACRED) by Amazon!!!
I asked him, finally, if in his opinion, our Trois Coquilles.
A) made of the most precious and noble Paonazzetto Marble,
B) designed by a Parisian architect,
C) carved by a nineteenth-century master from Lunigiana,
D) lovingly and manually polished in pumice stone for no less than a few days,
E) restored by us as if we were to care for our own son, C) was… had no right to cost as much as its Chinese “brethren”!!!
IN ANY CASE, AND THIS I SAY TO THE VISITOR TO THIS PAGE, THERE IS NO REAL POSSIBILITY OF COMPARISON BETWEEN THIS SPECIMEN AND ONE OF ITS BRETHREN BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER TROIS COQUILLES IN PAONAZZETTO MARBLE ON THE MARKET IN THE ENTIRE GLOBE.
For a time of perhaps 10 seconds a cold silence was felt rising up the twisted cord of my Sirius, then our man babbled some excuse, totally insubstantial, thus demonstrating his own poverty, of knowledge and soul. ****
TO CONCLUDE THIS DEMEANING “PECUNIARY DISCOURSE,” I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT TO THOSE WHO READ ME THAT ON OUR SITE THE TROIS COQUILLES FIREPLACES (ALL FROM THE SAME ERA AND IN VERY DIGNIFIED WHITE MARBLE FROM CARRARA) ARE OFFERED FOR SALE AT AN AVERAGE COST OF ABOUT € 4500/5000.
HOW COME THESE COST HALF AS MUCH AS THE SPECIMEN I AM PRESENTING HERE, WHICH, AFTER ALL, IS OF THE SAME STYLISTIC FAMILY AND WITH THE SAME DECORATIVE LOAD!
IT'S SIMPLE, EVEN THE FERRARI, WHICH IS ALSO FROM THE FIAT FAMILY, COSTS A LITTLE MORE THAN THE, ALBEIT VERY PRETTY AND NICE, 500!!!
REAL COMMENT:
PARIS HAS BEEN ITS HOME SO FAR, BUT OUR TROIS COQUILLES IN PAONAZZETTO WAS BORN IN LUCCHESE SOIL, AMONG THE DUST OF A SCULPTURE WORKSHOP IN THE LAND OF LUNI (BY THE WAY, SMALL HISTORICAL NOTE: THE ROMANS HAD GIVEN THIS MARBLE THE NAME “LUNI STONE”) IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
PERFECT (ADJECTIVE TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY) PRESERVATION, THE PATINA IS NOT EVEN WORTH TALKING ABOUT SO OBVIOUSLY FASCINATING.
Its colors, which lie on a pure white Calcium Carbonate (proper of the best Statuary marble) go up along veins tending to Bleu, and seem (the colors) those of Ivory. Or rather, of Ivory they have the patina, the warmth, the atmosphere.
IF THIS MANTEL WERE A POEM, GIVEN ITS AESTHETIC PURITY, IT WOULD BE A COMPOSITION BY D'ANNUNZIO.
**** I know, having offended and perhaps humiliated him, I will lose this client/architect, but what can you do, I have spent my life in the sphere of the most beautiful work that man can desire, among the beautiful and well-made things of the good old days, and I just don't want to see them debased. If I then think that our fireplaces are CERTAINLY worth (just do the math) more than they cost and above all are no longer “duplicable” since as of about 1940, there are no longer any Master Craftsmen capable of bringing forth from their own hands and experience such Works of Art... well, all the more reason I find the Strength to fight the ignorance of those who, because of the profession they are in, ignorant should not be
