ANTIQUE LOUIS XV POMPADOUR PIED GALBE' FIREPLACE IN PRECIOUS BRECCIA D'ALEPPO MARBLE, FOUND IN PARIS.
Very rare Louis XV mantel carved between 1840 and 1850 in Aleppo Breccia. I think I can say that in the European antiques market there is no fireplace in this rare marble guise and, at the same time, of such a small size.
All over the world this marble is known by the French name “Breche d'Aleph” because under that name it was marketed, precisely, by the French.
However, I call it by the Italian name since the first admirers (and importers) of this fantastic Breccia were precisely the Romans. To be precise, the quarrying of the marble took place in the town of Keryes ( a region of the Northern Aegean or, if you prefer, Peloponnese) while its name of “Breche d'Aleph” seems to derive from the locality of Alet, near Aix-en-Provence in France, in the past mistakenly believed to be the place of origin of this marble while it was only a sorting and trading place.
You have to think that the cost of transporting it from the Peloponnese to Paris (the boats were sailboats and in some sections also rowboats, depending on the wind..) were enormous and therefore such an expensive marble was hardly used for a bedroom fireplace, as our mantel was.
As I mentioned above, this marble came from Greece and the quarry was exhausted in the late 19th/early 20th century years.
The Breccia of this specific specimen (and it does not take an expert to realize this) is of exceptional quality and color. Its clasts (the name for the “stones” contained in these marble slabs, I call them by their scientific name to show that I understand them) are particularly homogeneous both as “granulomentry” (another show of wisdom, I could have vulgarly said “size”) and as distribution over the various slabs that make up the fireplace.
The fireplace is in perfect condition and its price appears truly ridiculous, a fact due to our good purchase.
A curiosity: The ancient sculptors referred to it generically as “Old Breccia.”
A second curiosity: (which is then also information for our customers, particularly if they love films and songs from the postwar period until the end of our civilization, which ends the day the Internet is born): A decade ago we purchased three fireplaces from the home of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, in Paris, Boulevard Saint Germain No. 144. An article was also written and published about these fireplaces by Casantica magazine.. Well, these fireplaces were indeed carved in Aleppo Breccia, and I have one example left of the triptych, about 130 cm wide.
NOTES ON THE QUANTITY OF THE PUBLISHED FIREPLACES:
Many customers call and ask us. “We would like to come to you, but ... it's not like we come there and you only have 3 or 4 fireplaces, right?!”
Or, “But. Are they all there, those fireplaces posted on the site!?” And so on and so forth, a sequence of doubts, fears, and lack of confidence (maybe they have already been burned, who knows).
So I answer here once and for all, hoping that this note will be read and understood “literally.”
A) In our warehouse you will not find all the published fireplaces, but you will even find a few more... We just can't get all the photos and all the necessary cataloging done;
B) In stock we have many more fireplaces than those published. The fact is that said mantels are in the condition of the find, just arrived from the construction sites from which they were disassembled
We also try to keep the website up-to-date, in fact very up-to-date, almost in real time: As soon as a fireplace is sold we immediately remove it from the website or we write at the top of the descriptions, in block letters, “THIS FIREPLACE HAS BEEN SOLD,” and when a customer asks us to “hold it for him” we write “ON HOLD UNTIL...” etc... etc...
