Antique “Pompadour Pied Galbé” fireplace in White Carrara marble quality “P” (the letter P stands for “pure” and refers to the background color. This particular white marble, in fact, is ALWAYS and happily furrowed by veins peculiar to Carrara whites, except for the world's finest and most famous Statuary marble, quarried at the Cervaiole quarry).
As is understandable, not all antique mantels are equal or in the same state of preservation, in much the same way that humans are..
Not everyone can, as was the case for our most illustrious countrywoman Rita Montalcini, have a very lucid mind at the ripe old age of 100 years, many, unfortunately, bounce back sooner (I, for example, despite being a few decades younger than our dearest Rita, have already gone off on a tangent...at least according to my wife..).
And so it happens that even many fireplaces have, I repeat while very understandable, aches and pains of various kinds ...
Not this time, this time we are faced with the exception that confirms the rule, this time we are faced with an “excellence” in terms of good Conservation ...
The fire surround I present here, in fact, has a truly exceptional state of preservation, an equally exceptional polish and consequent patina, in short, a “perfection” that is almost as unnatural as it is happy.
But this is not the end of the story:
It almost seems as if he wants to spite me, this all-perfect fireplace, and I'll explain why:
He knows very well that I always preach to my possible customers not to come to us and buy a fireplace mantel if they are part of the "family of the uncontactable" (remember the 60s advertisement?!), of those who... want the fireplace to be ANTIQUE BUT NEW, completely free of old age wrinkles, various consumptions or loving "traces" on its skin..
But even more I am disheartened, gripped by a feeling of helplessness, when the customer (usually the cruelest are the women...) utters the fateful request: “I WANT THE fireplace WHITE, INCLUDING WHITE...”
As if in the nineteenth century (the period from which THE 99% of antique fireplaces on the market come) sculptors could have carved fireplaces destined for the bourgeoisie in fine marble such as the STATUARY OF THE CERVAIOLE, that is, in a marble destined for monuments or precious Napoleonic, aristocratic, Berlusconian and papal commissions..
Well, this fantastic Pompadour was carved in a “Pure Carrara White” of good quality, that is, in a marble already at a very high level, just a small step below the Statuary.
The only “thing” that is not exceptional (as it should be..) is its price, deliberately kept at the level of its brethren, by virtue of our motto that says, “first come, first served.”
Take advantage of it, then, such situations are very rare indeed (forgers excluded, of course, who also peddle very white fireplaces that look like they have been washed with TIDE, PRINTED in marble paste, which is nothing more than waste marble dust mixed with various glues and “bleached” by unidentified chemical solutions...
Provenance Paris, Italian sculpture, carving period c. 1860-80.
