ON HOLD
This mantelpiece is appealing. We published it a few days ago, and this morning a lady who fell in love with this fireplace mantel called us to get some information about that specimen, and I answered the phone...
Madam: Good morning, I called you to ask why that fireplace costs so much money, when, on your site, I see several others very similar, equally beautiful, which, however. ... cost 8, 9, 10,000 Euros, ... IN ESSENCE COST HALF'...
Me, Maurizio: Ehh... my lady, you are right, but the ones you point out to me don't have their iron insert casts....
Ma'am: I saw that they don't have it, but I also saw that an iron insert -italso says on your site- costs about 3000 € and 8000 + 3000 Makes 11,000 AND NOT 18,500 !!! HOW'S THAT, MR. MAURIZIO!!!
Maurizio: I would like to answer you as a very nice half-crazy man who used to frequent our bar (50 years ago) replied to the policeman who wanted to fine him because his broken-down Vespa was “smarmy”.... To the policeman who asked him, "HOW DO WE PUT IT !?! Jango Fiascoun (that was his nickname) thus answered him: MITILA COUNTR'AL MUR PERCHE' A SUN SEINSA CAVALLET!!!" “(Put it against the wall because I am without an easel!).”
MY RESPONSE TO YOU, LADY, IS MUCH LESS SIMPATIC: THIS EXEMPLARY COSTS MUCH MORE THAN ITS SIMILAR CONFRACTOR BECAUSE IT IS EQUIPPED WITH ITS ORIGINAL CAST IRON INSERT. But finding a cast iron insert that perfectly fits the curves of a baroque fireplace like the one you like so much is like winning the New Year's Eve Lottery, in essence, it is not possible to make the sum you made me just now....
AND THIS COMBINATION OF FIREPLACE+CAST IRON INSERT IS DRIVING OUR CUSTOMERS CRAZY (WHICH WOULD THEN BE, IN ESSENCE, YOUR WIVES IN CAHOOTS WITH YOUR ARCHITECTS..) SO MUCH SO THAT EVEN WE (WHO IN TURN ARE GETTING MORE AND MORE PHONE CALLS WITH THE FATEFUL QUESTION. “BUT..HOW MANY FIREPLACES DO YOU HAVE WITH CAST IRON INSERTS?”), HAVE TO GO CRAZY IN THE OBSESSIVE SEARCH FOR MANTELS WITH THESE CHARACTERISTICS.
Having said that, let's come to our beautiful (and I would even say perfect for its age) fireplace....
Just think that when this fireplace was born, the Salerno-Reggio Calabria you could not travel it not so much because of its potholes, but because the Brigante Fumel raged there, this just to give you an idea of the time of its creation and its many decades of life spent among the most harmful animals on the globe, HUMAN BEINGS.
MY SPEAKING GRILL: Excuse me, Maurizio, but what does the brigand Fumel have to do with the story of this fireplace?
ME (MAURIZIO): Well, dear my talking cricket, it is that usually, in order to make it clear to those who read us what is the period of construction of the fireplace I am presenting, I always refer to Garibaldi... If the fireplace is from the first half of the nineteenth century, I write “While this fireplace was being carved, Garibaldi was in swaddling clothes” (so the reader gets immersed in the period) while, if the fireplace is from the second half of the nineteenth century, I write “ While this fireplace was being carved, Garibaldi, had just finished uniting (much to Bossi's anger) Italy” and so on...
This time, not to repeat myself, the brigand Fumel came to mind, what can I say? It could have been the Romagnolo Passator Cortese (good idea, I'll save it for next time) or who knows what other famous character from the Antique period of the 19th century? HAPPY, CURIOUS?
EXCUSE THE DISTURBING INSERTION OF MY TALKING CRICKET AND BACK TO US:
The name of this mantel is “Trois Glands”, but be aware that in place of the aforementioned “glands” (acorns) you will always find three floral buds (sometimes as few as two plus a third bud in swaddling, opening).
An oddity?
Yes, but not the only one in the world of antique fireplaces. For example, the Louis XVI fireplace nicknamed “Olive Branch” almost never has the Olive Branch decoration on its front (at least not in 99% of cases), but an, equally happily charming, Laurel Branch.
Strange, isn't it?
My pet peeve is that I will most likely die without knowing the reason for these inappropriate names, and know that I have asked, and have been asking for decades, a great many elderly insiders questions along these lines....
In addition to the beautiful front full of many carvings, we have a nice pair of shells on either side of the same front, “nice pair” in that these shells are stylized/interpreted in a leafy way, much finer than the classic shells we may on average come across.
In addition to this, elegant cartouches at the feet, which, more ornate than this, cannot be found....
PARISIAN FIND, ITALIAN AND PIETRASANTINA SCULPTURAL QUALITY, AGE OF BIRTH 1860-80, EXCELLENT OVERALL CONSERVATION.
