ON HOLD
THE NAME OF THIS FIREPLACE MODEL COMES FROM THE NAME OF THE FRENCH'S MOST BELOVED COOKIE.... READING THE COMMENT BELOW, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING....
You know those little “Macarons!” treats? Those French “spumini” made with a very light paste made from egg whites and a drop (no more, eh..) of “meringue” cream?! Someone mentions that they've never heard of them.... GOOD!!! Anyway, let's move on, by now I've decided to set the commentary on the nickname of this model, and it's not like I can back out.. Incidentally, the mantelpiece is SIMPATICO, and maybe the related commentary could be nice too....
THE “MACARONS” BISCUITS They are the colorful ones, all lined up according to color, the ones that sell them to you in stores that are always near a bank branch, since their prohibitive cost (they weigh LITTLE GRAMS and cost TWO EUROS CADAIN..) will force you to take out a mortgage or, at the very least, look for the nearest ATM because no one goes around with that much money in their pockets.. And to think that this cookie originated at home in the Venice of the 1500s and was brought to France by the traitor Catherine De' Medici when she married Henry II°.. It's her fault that when you go to France on a Fantozzi model tour, the kind that “IN TWO DAYS YOU WILL LOVE ALL THE CASTLES OF THE LOIRE,” your wife forces you to bring home a package of these IMPERDIBLE cookies for a close friend of hers.. And it's not like you can buy two or three, of cookies, here you need a nice (read “BIG”) package, the kind that, when you extend your credit card at the Parisian POS video(the most exorbitant in the world, try it to believe it!!) you can hear, all right, the sound of the sucking of money from your wallet is by now already flying towards the smiling(who knows why..) confectioner's counter!!!
Well, now that you know all about our Macaron by now, you will immediately recognize in the carvings on the front of this mantelpiece his image carved in quadruple interpretation:
In the two Macarons on the right and left sides there is the classic and unfailing depiction of the daisy, a flower that , given its structure (the central yellow disk represents the sun and its very white petals the sun's rays) was placed everywhere in TRIBUTE TO Louis XIV, who was, indeed, called THE SUN-KING!!! In the second flower starting from the right is another classic, a flower that spins on itself(like the pinwheels we used to attach to our bicycles as children, remember?") and represents the Comet Star.. A tribute to the creator never hurts, better to keep it good....
The other flower, sorry, but I couldn't decipher it, we'll make do with these three macarons...
All this nursery rhyme to explain that this fireplace takes its name from the nickname of these cookies.... The cadet branch of the Macarons is part of the Louis XVI family, and normally, partly because of the significant cost of its fine carvings (carved in Italy because the French did not have a sculptural quality like our school, which was born on the slopes of the Apuan Alps around the year 399 BC)) the Macarons specimens were almost always larger and richer in sculptural quantity.. Let me explain better: The Macaron we present here has as its only sculpture this one of the four stars, but if you go and browse in the High Range section you will find one or two more important Macaron specimens, IN MUCH MORE IMPORTANT MEASURES(the rich the mantels demanded them large..) and with remarkable and fascinating sculptural loads. And of course with costs that were also..fascinating.
But, come to think of it, “our” mantel does have an important arrow to its bow: ITS SMALL SIZE, WHICH WILL VERY RARELY BE FOUND IN ITS CLASSICAL PARENTS, a size that will have less trouble fitting into our modern and increasingly small living environments..
HIS HOME WAS IN VILLEFRANCHE (LOVELY TOWN NEAR LYON), THE TIME OF ITS BIRTH IS DATABLE TO THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY (IN THE MIDDLE OF BELLE EPOQUE!!) , EXCELLENT ITS PRESERVATION AND PATINA.
