All our fireplaces seem, to my eyes, charming. Even in the poorest specimens I cannot fail to find a nice, sympathetic, eye-catching detail in short, such as to allow even the poorest of our thousand fireplaces, its beautiful parity with its other brethren..
But it is undoubted (and after all, it is also right that it should be so..) that, from time to time the “all-encompassing” falling in love appears, EVEN IF IT WAS FOR JUST ONE PARTICULAR THAT EXEMPLARY POSSIBLE, while for the rest, perhaps, the same fireplace falls within the normal range.
In the case of the Louis XVI "Deux Etoilles ” that I am presenting here, the falling in love of mine (but, I would swear, also of anyone who comes to see it de visu) occurred after I moved ONE STEP into the hall of the Parisian building (on Rue Ordener, a neighborhood adjacent to the famous Montmartre stairs) where we disassembled it. There was no need to go near it to be fascinated by it; its marble surfaces seemed to give off glows visible and enjoyable at any distance.. When I was then able to caress it, and understood what its marble was, all was clear.
The marble is a Calacatta, Vagli quarry, its background is not WHITE but CANDID (many sculptors call it “CREMOSO”), exactly as candid as Carrara Statuary marble is in its best expression, for example in the Statuary of the “Delle Cervaiole” quarry (it was the one where Michelangelo was sourcing). In addition to the extraordinary Beauty of its “background,” there are its very noble friezes, composed of a light gray with reflections tending to green (they are, in fact, plant fossils).
Having celebrated the Apotheosis of its marble (well-deserved, believe me...), let us examine its sculpted decorations, starting with that pair of “stars” which, turning on themselves, decorate the top of the shoulders. Well, this particular star (which looks like the pinwheel we used to play with as children, blowing on it to make it turn...) is not an ordinary star, as there are billions of them, but represents the Comet Star, which, in turn, is not the representation tout court of a star, albeit a particularly beautiful one, but it is, for the ancients, the wish that its presence (in this case even double) may show the family sitting in front of that fireplace the way to go in order not to incur in error. As he taught it well two thousand years earlier to the three wise men. In ancient fireplaces these sculptural as well as auspicious meanings are there often, very often, and if you come to visit I will point out several of them, all interesting and unsuspected curiosities.
In addition to the pair of etoilles, we have, at the top of the legs and immediately below each of the two etoilles, a precious “collar” made from the sculpture of a series of Hibiscus leaves. Again, of course, with the choice of this particular plant we have the relative signification, in this case, given the extreme exuberance of this plant, we must speak in the plural, that is, of relative significations: The Hibiscus plant represents Beauty, if with red flower, Passion, otherwise, if with white flower, Friendship. Since it is a perennial plant, that is, reborn for long periods, it will guarantee its users a long life.. But that's not all, hear hear, it seems to have miraculous medicinal qualities with special emphasis on heart health.. I repeat what was said before, all these “sculptural meanings” are to be translated into Augury addressed to the owners of the fireplace itself, this was the intention of the ancient architects who designed it.
The last and very fine sculptural gem you can see at the foot of the mantel: In the grooves of the legs, at the lowest part, you can admire, in each niche, a very small flower with a kind of pistil (also very small and very thin) emerging from the top of the little flower. In France this flower is called “asperge” (asparagus) but not with the intention of ridiculing it, but rather to express their playful sympathy for it. The quality of this infinitesimal sculpture (which many do not even consider while it is the result of an art that few artists possess) is of enviable refinement.
OF ITS PLACE OF DISCOVERY WE HAVE ALREADY SAID, ITS PERIOD OF BIRTH, (WHICH TOOK PLACE FIRST IN THE PENCIL OF A PARISIAN ARCHITECT AND THEN AMONG THE WHITE DUST OF A PIETRASANTA SCULPTURE WORKSHOP) IS TO BE DATED TO THE LAST TWENTY YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ITS PRESERVATION IS IMPECCABLE, IT WAS BEAUTIFUL EVEN BEFORE STARTING ITS RESTORATION, WHICH, IN THE END, TURNED OUT TO BE BASICALLY AN ACCURATE MAQUILLAGE.
