FIREPLACE MANTEL WITH REGENCY ARCHITECTURE IN CARRARA "VENATINO" MARBLE, LATE NINETEENTH/EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY PERIOD, FROM TORTONA, PERFECT PRESERVATION.
(IN THE IMAGE TO THE RIGHT ABOVE YOU CAN SEE THIS FIREPLACE BEFORE ITS DISASSEMBLY. PITY FOR THOSE TACKY PAINTINGS INSIDE THE HEARTH, AIMED PERHAPS, IN THE INTENTIONS OF THE “PAINTER” WHO EXECUTED THEM, TO GIVE EVEN MORE 'LUSTER TO THIS ALREADY' IMPORTANT FIREPLACE IN ITSELF...).
If it is rare to come across a fireplace of Regency architectural design because of the fact that this style was in the nineteenth century almost completely forgotten, it is even rarer to find one of Italian provenance.
Moreover, this splendid specimen is from Piedmont, and it is from this place of its birth that it takes the right proportions and design, the Piedmontese, we know, are precise and careful in what they do, and so they did not “regionalize” Regency stylism more than that, unlike in every other Italian region, including Lombardy...
Its cost, then, seems offensive for so much quality, so much fascinating stylism, so much history…
IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS MANTEL, PERHAPS PRECISELY BECAUSE OF THE INFLUENCE OF “FLORAL ART” (THIS IS HOW THE ART NOUVEAU STYLE WAS INITIALLY CALLED), HAS HARMONY AND DELICACY OF ORNAMENTATION IN IT.
IN ANY CASE IT IS A “UNIQUE PIECE,” NOT AN OBJECT OF SERIAL PRODUCTION, DESIGNED WITH EXCELLENT PROBABILITY BY THE SAME DESIGNER OF THE BUILDING FROM WHICH WE RECOVERED IT.
