DUTIFUL INTRODUCTION: THIS FIREPLACE MANTEL OF THE NEOCLASSICAL "DEUX FEURS" FAMILY COSTS A LITTLE (NOT A LITTLE, IN TRUTH) MORE THAN SEVERAL OF ITS BRETHREN IN OUR WAREHOUSE, SOME OF THEM PUBLISHED IN THIS SAME SECTION OF OUR SITE.
WHY!?!
ON WHAT DOES THIS “SO MUCH” ECONOMIC DIFFERENCE DEPEND?!
FROM ONE THING ONLY:
ITS, FANTASTIC, UNOBTAINABLE, NOBLE, CANDID AND HIGHLY SOUGHT-AFTER STATUARY MARBLE FROM CARRARA, FROM AN EXTRAORDINARY QUARRY, CALLED “CERVAIOLE”.
ONLY BY SEEING IT IN PERSON, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT ITS CHARM IS AND YOU WILL BE TAKEN, LITERALLY, RIGHT AWAY.
HAVING SAID THAT, LET'S MOVE ON TO THE ACTUAL COMMENTARY:
TWO ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF THIS FIREPLACE, CADET OF A VERY NOBLE FAMILY (THAT OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED AND ELEGANT LOUIS XVI WITHOUT EXCESS):
(A) THE QUALITY OF ITS SCULPTURE. Take a good look at the pictures illustrating the two rosettes on the sides of the front, even if profane in the field of sculpture, you will immediately understand the remarkable level of finesse of this work of burin, or rather, of "violin," because it is precisely with an ancient tool (invented in Lunigiana, Italy, a few hundred years ago) that was so called, "Violin" (I put the capital letter because it deserves it) that these rosettes could be carved with such finesse. Maybe the QUANTITY of its decorative load is not so much, but sometimes it is better not to overdo it, sometimes just a little finesse is enough to be noticed by those who can understand;
B) THE QUALITY OF ITS CARRARA STATUARY MARBLE. Yes, because one is quick to say “Statuary” but not all quarries are identical, again there is quality and quality, different degrees of whiteness and so on.
In our case the level of quality of this Statuary, on a scale of 1 to 10, GOES TO 10, if we consider that the quarry “Delle Cervaiole” was the same one at which it was possible to meet, every other day, our Michelangiolo. Incidentally, today this quarry bears the name Cave Michelangelo.”
Another thing, very important, and I'm sorry it doesn't show well in this, albeit long, series of photographs (no big deal, I'll point it out to you if and when you visit us because a chimney is like a morose, better to come and see it in person, or not?!): The choice of the Carrara Statuary slabs was made (he was a shrewd and precise Master, that sculptor) according to the right hierarchy, the best quality slabs on the front (legs and front), the “poorer” ones (“poorer” so to speak) on the sides..
Another important notation on the "images" discourse: It is white, this Statuary fireplace, but so white that it almost doesn't impress the film, hardly showing the contours of the piece...
MY SPEAKING GRILL: “ The film?! But if it doesn't even exist anymore, the film?!”
ME: Whatever, if it is not the film that is not impressed by that much whiteness it will be something else, you know very well that I don't understand anything about those modern and mephistophelean photographic machines....The important thing in this commentary is to convey to those who read us how white is the color tone of this most noble marble, whiter than that washed with OMO!"
A CURIOSITY: Do you know what they call that decoration at the front made of a series of grooves with those “half-pencils” dating back!
The French (who must still be given the honor of having devised the basic stylism of this fireplace) call all those niches “Arcades” (arcades).
Arcades, grooves, shall we say, necessary, by way of background, to the dating “Pompeian flutes.”
PARIS, ITALIAN SCULPTURE, PERFECT PRESERVATION, NAPOLEON III (OR, IF YOU PREFER, “SECOND EMPIRE”) PERIOD.
MEMORIES OF MY OWN, WHICH CAME TO LIGHT AS I WAS WRITING THIS COMMENTARY:
There is a place, in Florence, where even in the daytime and perhaps despite the screech of automobile traffic in the background, you can savor Beauty in inordinate quantities..
It is Piazzale Michelangelo, breathtaking views of all of Florence and to the side, keeping you silent company while you are absorbed in this bliss, the statue of David..
Baptisteries, towers and domes floating on a sea of ancient roofs, each stone with a story on it....
And the Arno, with its bridges and its flowing, slow and pleasant, through history, to sap your thoughts.
But that place, though exaggeratedly so beautiful in the light of noontide, at sunset becomes even ... magical.
Here, when the glare of the sun is gone, stop and sip a good bianchetto at the bar in the piazzale, look down and the roofs, in the reflection of the moon will seem to uncover themselves and give you their history, the Arno will speak to you with its reflections and the tower of the Signoria will take you, along with the names of the Florentine families, to the time of the Renaissance.
Everything will seem to you. Perfect, almost a Bliss of the senses, a moment of those that you will experience very few times....
There, I know that I appear to be exaggerating (because I, for certain things, am exaggerating, and I don't regret it, on the contrary..), but when I saw assembled the fireplace that I am presenting here and that I had bought all disassembled into various parts, I truly experienced a moment of Bliss, a moment that without meaning to, I automatically compared to what I described above about Piazzale Michelangelo version (almost) “by nigth..”
Yes, because Perfection is achieved only when different and complementary elements manage to come together, indeed, to “unite” into a single figure, exactly as, at Piazzale Michelangelo, the whales, the moon, the story etc... etc..
In this fireplace mantel they found together a very refined marble (THE CLASSIC STATAURIO, perhaps, in the sphere of the Statuary, the most refined), an architectural design as “simple” as elegant as only the Neoclassical can be, a sculptural load that smells of Pietrasanta (a place of miracles as far as sculpture is concerned) and, last but not least, a preservation also definable as miraculous, the result of a care never interrupted by its owners (7/8 generations at least).
