Cheminées Françaises : À Travers Les Styles

The fireplace has always been the central element of the room around which everything revolves. Synonymous with warmth and comfort, man has improved it, adorned it, brought it up to date, sculpted it, decorated it in the fashion of the time, painted it, moulded it, embellished it. From this ancient aspiration, always renewed and yet shaped by tradition, a profusion of styles and forms was born. These styles (Louis XV or Directoire for example) are well known when applied to furniture, but they are illustrated here in the art of the fireplace, whether it is made of stone, wood, terracotta, marble or cast iron.

This book presents more than 100 antique French fireplaces, from the Gothic period to the first half of the 20th century, through a stylistic analysis of the sculptures and ornaments that decorate them.