FAMILY HISTORIES
Its great stylistic family is that of the Baroque, and in particular the Louis XV style, which originated in the mid-1800s but was much refined throughout the nineteenth century, acquiring more lightness (in the 1700s Baroque fireplaces were a little too ornate, “heavy,” in short) as well as greater refinement of sculpture.
Above, in the title, I called it, in addition to Louis XV, also Améliorée (in the feminine because in France the fireplace makes “chimneypiece, and to me it seems right that it should, especially when chimneypieces have lines and sides like THE Exemplar I am presenting here). And the fireplace on this page is, indeed, an improved model of its Louis XV parent “Trois Coquilles,” examples of which you can find in our Louis XV section. The structure is the same as its poorer relative but its sculptural endowment is, decidedly SUPERIOR.
Last “technical” note (you may have already read it elsewhere on our site, but I cannot resist insisting: If the stylism and executive design are certainly French (after all, that was the best stylism of the nineteenth century), the sculpture of this fireplace was just as certainly done in a workshop on the slopes of the Apuan Alps, in Carrara, in Pietrasanta, in Sarzana, in Carrara or thereabouts... ITALY. We can therefore say that our fireplace is a French-Italian.
PARISIAN FIND, SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY ERA, EXCELLENT PRESERVATION AND PATINA.
