Notice: This fireplace mantel will be available for viewing at our premises starting from October 18, 2025.
UNFINDABLE, REALLY? THAT’S WHAT YOU THOUGHT AS SOON AS YOU READ THE TITLE?
You probably assumed it was just another exaggeration worthy of a mattress salesman – the kind of phrase you read so often you stop noticing altogether.
But this time, you'd be wrong.
Because finding a Pompadour Plat fireplace mantel – one of the most “basic” and understated designs – dressed in such a precious marble is just as unusual as seeing a sewer worker entering a manhole in stiletto heels and an embroidered silk gown.
In truth, the Pompadour Plat (which I personally adore and would gladly dedicate a monument to) is perhaps the most modest fireplace of all.
Not in terms of style – its curves and lines form the very basis of 19th-century Baroque design – but in terms of its decorative load and detailing, it’s clearly on the simpler end.
Yet it is so graceful and endearing that it’s often chosen even by those who could easily afford something grander – people who value elegant simplicity and charming design over excessive ornament.
And in this case, the client who commissioned this specific mantel had the means to spend more – and for the fireplace mantel in their bridal bedroom, they requested one of the most exquisite and refined marbles available: Calacatta Gold, part of the same noble family as Statuario Carrara, the world’s most celebrated group of marbles.
Parisian style meets Lunigiana sculpture (the best artistic pairing on the planet), late 19th-century, and in outstanding original condition.
ECOLOGY & ANTIQUE FIREPLACES
On my nightstand sits a book I thought would be light reading — "Mao perché sei morto?" by Massimo Bucchi — whom I had always considered a simple cartoonist.
But it turned out to be surprisingly powerful.
One cartoon shows a priest by a dying man’s bedside, asking if there’s anything he wants to repent.
The man replies, with a serious and generous expression:
“I leave my son the match still burning.”
It’s a metaphor, of course:
We’ve polluted and damaged this world, and even though we realized it, we did nothing. Now, with death approaching, we leave the consequences to the next generation. That, he says, is his greatest sin.
So what does this have to do with an antique fireplace mantel?
Well, ever since I began my work, I’ve believed in preserving the environment.
For every antique mantelpiece I recover, restore and sell, there is one less mountain being quarried or scarred.
I know it might sound like idealistic talk, but it’s the truth.
I believed in this half a century ago, when I was just starting out. I believed an antique fireplace was always better: more authentic, more artistic, more fascinating, and even more economical than any newly manufactured piece – which often smells like plastic, silicone wax, and toxic glue… made who knows where.
And you know what?
In some small way, I was right – maybe 2, 3, or 4% of what I had hoped for at twenty, but still...
