A week before Christmas a Paris broker of mine, Ludovic, calls me. He's all excited, we've known each other for many years, and he knows that if he talks too fast I don't understand anything he's about to say to me in his Parisian slang, BUT..he sounds invaded and erupts sentences like machine-gun bullets.... I try to stop him, but I can't.... I understand, more or less, that he has a big construction site on the Champs Elysées on his hands, a construction site where there are beautiful fireplaces.... “Louis Quinze avec des fleurs, beaucoup de fleurs...” is the most recurring phrase in that phone call.... Precisely this excitement of his, unusual for someone who by trade is a broker of antique fireplaces on the “square” home of the antique fireplace and who therefore sees important fireplaces very often, precisely this excitement of his, I was saying, makes me think of something really important.... He asks me to “aller toute de suite,” right away, of course with the necessary “argent,” because he, as always for that matter, has no money in his pocket to give the deposit.... I tell him yes, that I will leave immediately in my van, and while I tell him so I think of the fact that my wife will maul me.... “We're under vacation....what are you going to do-you have 1,000 fireplaces in stock, what are you going to do with three or four more?.... Who knows what weather you will find in Paris and what traffic on the roads...etc. etc..” Indeed, snow and clogged roads I did find them (from my home to Mont Blanc, then everything was fine, in France services work, and how !!!), but... I didn't even pay attention to it, I had the excitement of discovery on me, that I would ever find the that palace on the Champs Elysées?
Well, this stunning Louis XV mantel is the most important of the fireplaces purchased on that trip....
It is exceptional in everything:
1) In its carvings, which certainly came out of an Art workshop on the slopes of Mt. Amiata..
2) In the importance of the model, powerful and graceful at the same time, sprung from the pencil of a good architect....
3) In the fact that its White Carrara marble is of good quality and chosen taking care that there was, among the various slabs, the greatest homogeneity of tone..
4) In its age: Here we are with a foot in the first half of the Antique, and since eighteenth-century Louis XV fireplaces just cannot be disassembled for at least a quarter of a century it follows that this mantel in addition to being marvelous in itself is also one of the oldest Louis XVs it is possible to own..
5) In its PERFECT (read literally..) preservation.
6) In its average size (cm 142), since a fireplace with so much decorative load one normally finds it in sidereal sizes, definitely larger and often not very adaptable to the measurements of the third millennium..
All these things having been said, let us go and enjoy all the sculptural representations of this mantel, which I believe was made for a specific and single commission:
Let us start with its family name: “Coquille Saint Jacques.” It is none other than the representation of a very special shell, in this case carved in the center of the frontal. The story of this shell is incredible, I will describe it briefly:
Do you know the Way of St. James of Compostela? It was (and is) about 800 km long and for believers it meant hard work but also salvation from sins committed, given the discounts that priests donated (with stamped paper, eh..) was generous. But not everyone was willing to travel 800 km with the risk of running into brigands and risking their skins.... Wealthier “penitents” could (as good priests are..) stay at home and send their representative to the Shrine of St. James of Compostela with the required obolus... Of course, the poor man was kept on bread and onion and at the end he was paid the agreed upon amount. But ... the wealthy principal, how could he be sure that his slave at the Mausoleum had made it there? At stake was the entrance to heaven, not a joke.... And so, the poor man, in order to give certain proof to his principal, once he had reached the miraculous shrine, after having traveled 800 kilometers, had to suck up another 80 kilometers to reach Finisterre, on whose beach he would be able to pick up the fateful Saint Jacques shell, which ONLY beached there. But...there was another problem for the poor guy: The people of Finisterre (for goodness sake, all very religious and probable, all dedicated to helping their neighbors) at every dawnrise went to the beach to collect ALLthe Saint Jacques shells washed up during the night, what can you do, they liked them so much and made collections of them... In short, our poor guy had to leave what he still had in his pocket to these HONEST BELIEVERS and get ready to make the 880 km that separated him from his family.
INTERRUPTION OF COMMENTARY DUE TO WORK IN PROGRESS....
WE WILL RESUME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
