How satisfying, for me, to bring home, on my last trip to the White City, this unobtainable Napoleon III-period fireplace nicknamed "Carquoi" (Quiver...).
I was by then “on the bill” when I saw it... but if the opportunity arises to own such a fireplace, you can't think too much about it, a few hours later or a few days later the American or Englishman comes along and blows you away... and when the good Daniel (a refined old “collector” who would have a thousand emblazoned antique dealers to teach..) proposed it to me, I, who had just paid my taxes and had an anorexic wallet, immediately told him that yes, I would buy it.
Because in Europe of fireplaces of this family there will be on the market maybe two or three, but NONE, believe me, NONE of these last specimens will be in nobler and whiter marble, because this Carrara Statuary is of such quality that only one quarry can produce similar ones (of course at stellar prices), and that is the Cava Delle Cervaiole, the same one from which our Michelangelo drew the block of the Pietà.
Come and see it de visu, only then will you realize its magical whiteness, so “powerful” that it is difficult to impress its film.. Never seen anything like it, I often think when I look at it, and the same will happen to you, if you ever come to visit.
Also interesting is its patina, such as would make the most hardened antique dealer squirm.
This important fireplace mantel comes to us from a Parisian home (Montmartre district) built in the year 1860 (in France they have a very efficient bureaucracy... they know by whom, when and how a building was built in the 1800s !!! In Italy, damn us, we have a Bourbon cadastre, venturing into which means risking a nervous breakdown.).
Another patriotic note, besides the fact that Italian is its Marble:
This fireplace was carved by an artist from Italy (Carrara, or Pietrasanta) the French, in fact, did not have stonemasons of this level (nor can you invent in a flash the School of Sculpture that we had, which already in the nineteenth century had surpassed two millennia ..) and so they participated in the “birth” of this fireplace ONLY for the stylism part (which is not little anyway ..). Let us give Caesar what is Caesar's.
LATEST NOTES: GUARANTEES/DECLARATIONS OF AUTHENTICITY OF OUR ANTIQUE FIREPLACES.
For any fireplace mantel and regardless of its market value, Artis issues a declaration of authenticity on photographic paper, containing:
Picture of the object in question, size 10 x 10 or corresponding;
Description of construction materials;
Estimate of the period;
Estimate of the style;
Geographical provenance;
Artis stamp and signature of the owner.
More than this, we believe, is not possible, at least on our part.
We therefore advise those who have even the slightest doubt to contact the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (offices in Florence and Rome) to have an appraisal carried out (obviously before the purchase, we are very willing, in fact, happy to do so...), an appraisal that we recognize as very valid since said structure (of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage) is a non-commercial and definitely serious structure. This is the contact address: www.opificiodellepietredure.cultura.gov.it.
MORAL OF THE STORY: ARE YOU INTERESTED IN AN IMPORTANT FIREPLACE LIKE THIS ONE BUT AFRAID (AND YOU DO WELL WITH THE AMOUNT OF FORGERS THERE ARE IN ITALY!!) - OF THROWING YOUR MONEY AWAY ON A FAKE? WE WILL RESERVE YOU THIS MANTEL WHILE WAITING FOR YOU TO HAVE ITS AUTHENTICITY EVALUATED BY AN EXPERT.
