INTRODUCTION:
Almost all antique fireplaces on the market took (not to say “copied”) stylistic guidelines from the Parisian ateliers WHICH (let's give Caesar his due) were INDUBITABLY the top of the class. But this time. This time we present to you a “Provençal” mantel that has nothing less than its Parisian brethren, indeed, in several respects it can be called even more interesting because if the novelties it brings are to be considered pleasing, well at least it will be a breath of new themes to give us pleasantness.
NOTES IN DEFENSE OF THE PROVENÇAL FIREPLACE
Everything can be said about the Provençal fireplace....
The charge that goes around most is that said fireplace is “regionalized,” a bad term to explain how it deviates a little from the canons of classical stylism.
Generally this criticism is made from the pulpit of the “all-knowing” antiquarians, that is, those who sell from the nails of the cross of Christ to the Louis Louis Philippe buffet via Russian icons..
Usually those who “know everything” (Leonardo da Vinci and Pico della Mirandola excluded...) do not know in depth the things they are talking about.
The good fortune of said “experts in human knowledge” stems from the fact that those who listen to them and see them so confident in their imperative claims, that is, the customer, know even less about them... To these antiquarians who so much abhor Provençal fireplaces and, as I said above, call them “regionalized” as if this term were equivalent to “plague-ridden,” I reply that, then, ALL Italian fireplaces are “regionalized” and certainly are much more so than Provençal ones..
From the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the nineteenth century (1800 !!) Italy was nothing more than a myriad of staterelli or communes, in essence a myriad of bell towers armed against each other, also and especially culturally.
And this myriad of bell towers created a myriad of regionalized fireplaces so much so that today we speak of “Genoese” fireplaces when we mean a certain Louis XV built there, or we coined the term “Lombard” to define a mantel in approximate neoclassical style, between Louis XVI and the Directory, not to mention “Venetian fireplaces” (particular types of Louis XV..).
I, on the other hand, who of Louis Philippe furniture understand nothing and much less know how to distinguish a nail from the cross of Christ from one of those very old nails driven into the rafters of my beloved grandfather Archangel's cellar, nails from which hung a harvest of salami and cotechini “made up” by himself, I, I was saying, ignorant as I am, defend Provençal fireplaces to the sword, and find them always rich in grace, always different from one another (because of the small number produced for each model . .), always rich in at least one eye-catching detail.
As is the case with this mantel, in which a very special interpretation of the classic “Shell” becomes the leading motif of the entire mantel .
BY THE WAY (A VERY VENAL NOTE, BUT ONE THAT HAS ITS IMPORTANCE...), PROVENÇAL FIREPLACES GENERALLY COST A LITTLE LESS THAN SIMILAR MORE “PARISIAN” AND DECIDEDLY MORE VIEWED MODELS.
The fireplace I am presenting here was carved from a White Carrara marble of “P” quality (now called GIOIA from the name of the last remaining active quarry.
It has the classic architecture of Provençal fireplaces, the important unfailing capitals (floral with a pretty shell at the top) and a frontal endowed with a SCULPTURED WORK OF GOOD IMPORTANCE, ALSO REPRESENTING A CONCH, YES, BUT IN A LEAFYING WAY..
NIÇOIS FIND, PERFECT CONSERVATION, BELLE EPOQUE ERA, LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY
