IMPORTANT, SHALL WE SAY, “LOGISTICAL” INTRODUCTION:
DESPITE THE FACT THAT IN THE TITLE I CALLED THIS FIREPLACE “MONUMENTAL,” DESPITE THE FACT THAT IN THE COMMENTARY I WRITE ABOUT “UNUSUAL HEIGHT” OR “VERY WIDE SHOULDERS,” ETC. I REALIZED THAT MANY CUSTOMERS ONLY WHEN THEY ARE IN FRONT OF THE FIREPLACE (TO SEE THE FIREPLACE (TO WHICH, PERHAPS, THEY HAVE TRAVELED TWO HUNDRED KILOMETERS) UNDERSTAND THAT IN THEIR HOME ITS SIZE WOULD BE OUT OF PLACE.
IN ESSENCE, A FIREPLACE IS AN ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENT THAT MUST TAKE MAXIMUM ACCOUNT OF THE PROPORTIONS OF THE ROOM IN WHICH IT IS PLACED, AND OUR SPECIMEN NEEDS TO BREATHE IN ROOMS WHOSE HEIGHT IS, AT A MINIMUM, 310/320 CM.
“BOUCLES DE MER”, IN ITALIAN 'CURLS OF THE SEA' THIS IS THE NAME BY WHICH THE SCULPTORS OF THE TIME CALLED THIS PARTICULAR MEANING OF THE MOST 'CLASSIC FLORAL AND LEAFY ORNAMENTATION....
FROM THE SEA, BY THE WAY, CAME SEVERAL SCULPTURAL INSPIRATIONS RELATED TO THE LOUIS XV STYLE, I CITE ONE FOR ALL, THE FASCINATING “JELLYFISH VEIL” CARVING, THROUGH WHICH A DECORATIVE FIGURE (OFTEN, IN THE CASE OF FIREPLACES IT WAS THE CARTOUCHE IN THE CENTER OF THE FRONT) WAS GIVEN A MOVEMENT SIMILAR TO THE INCOMPARABLY ELEGANT MOVEMENT OF THE VEIL OF THE JELLYFISH.
AND LET'S NOT FORGET THAT “ROCAILLE,” SYNONYMOUS WITH LUIGI XV STYLISM, MEANS “SHELL.”
ACTUAL COMMENTARY:
I know, as soon as my son sees how I “paged” this card he will pull my ears....
“But dad, do we or do we not agree that the first photograph should be the one in which you see the whole fireplace?
Do we or do we not agree that the fireplace should be cleaned well first and then photographed against a white background?
Do you or do you not understand that only by maintaining a certain uniformity of presentation will we have a linear, balanced, in short...modern site!”
But, Enrico, when you first see this fireplace you are taken, intrigued, fascinated by the power of its frontal decoration, the beauty and charm of its “curls.”
And in my opinion, you can do nothing else in such cases but give importance (and thus prevalence over everything else) to this feature...
Why do you think women like Gabriel Garko or Ligabue Luciano?
Maybe because one acts well and the other sings just as well?
Absolutely not, Garko is famous for the fixity of his gaze (i.e., he always has the same face, regardless of the “acting” situation at that moment) while Ligabue has been writing and singing the same song for 20 years now..
The fact is that each of these two characters has his own peculiar endowment that makes him charismatic in the eyes of women: Garko has fantastic sculptural features while Liga has male scent to spare...
And even our mantel, one only has to look at its face (i.e., the frontal I have included as a presentation image) to see that it is “a fireplace that never has to ask...”
If we then go and note his physicality (he is much taller than the average of his brethren and has very broad shoulders..), well, then just the women will drive them crazy and not just enamored..
And you, Enrico, must understand that it is the women and not the little men their husbands, who are our real clients, OK?
Hoping that our clients' husbands have not listened to us, Enrico, let us now go over the “technical” characteristics of our Louis XV fireplace, presented here “nature,” that is, as we discovered it in its Parisian construction site, except for a cursory cleaning:
A) Of its unusual height we have already mentioned, but it is important to remark on this element because, for the same width, a greater height gives the fireplace a proportionately greater slenderness.. In short, a tall shaft is better than a low shaft, the latter will always be more “stocky.”
B) If his stylism is, clearly, French and Parisian, his sculpture is very Italian (Pietrasanta area or at any rate Carrarina area), and this is clearly seen in the quality of his ornamentation, which is moreover very deep (it is also this depth that gives greater strength to his personality);
C) The design of the legs is interesting, with that “shield” which, far from being incorporated into the continuous line of the leg (as happens in 99% of nineteenth-century Louis XV-style fireplaces) seems to “detach itself” from the rest of the leg and live a life of its own. This is a stylistic reminiscence of eighteenth-century Baroque, wrongly almost completely forgotten in the next century;
D) Lastly, it is important to consider how this specimen is to be considered a “unique piece,” that is, commissioned ad hoc and not mass-produced and then sold.
IN A WORD, THERE IS NO OTHER FIREPLACE IN THE WORLD SIMILAR TO THIS ONE.
PARIS, CIRCA 1870/80S PERIOD, GOOD QUALITY OF CARRARA WHITE MARBLE, EXCELLENT PRESERVATION.
P.S: SEEING IT IN PERSON AND THEREFORE WITH THREE-DIMENSIONAL OPTICS, WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT ITS VERY STRONG PERSONALITY WILL APPEAR MUCH MORE EVIDENT THAN THROUGH OUR (FORCIBLY FLAT) PHOTOGRAPHS.
