Style Neo-Renaissance / Ref.1000

Monumental Neo-Renaissance chimneypiece of the Prince of Chalais

Monumental Neo-Renaissance style mantel and overmantel bearing the arms of the Prince of Chalais carved in limestone from Bourré, from the mid 19th century. The jambs are composed of two columns presenting a geometrical ornamentation with inlays of Portor and Vert de Mer (Sea Green) marbles. The sides are flanked with large upside down scrolls of foliage. The entablature's decoration alternates between palmettes and fluting, and meets at the center with the arms of the Prince of Chalais. The trumeau has two arched niches, which are decorated with shells, designed to support busts on pedestals that are adorned on their facades with green Grand Mélange marble and, falling from their shelves, scrolls carved with scales and lined with rose garlands. The facade of the overmantel is balanced by three fluted pilasters rising to Ionic capitals carved with palmettes, pearls and flowers, each bearing at its centre a medallion of Sea Green marble, while remarkably elaborate rods nestle in the fluting below. Dentils and palmettes run along the cornice while the pediment is adorned with oval red Griotte medallions in richly sculpted frames that flank two pairs of putti astride scrolls of fruit and foliage leaning up against small round green Campan marble medallions. These charming figures crown the niches. Our chimney piece, designed as a work of architectural sculpture, features many other ornaments reminiscent of the Renaissance: arabesques, egg-and-dart, acanthus leaves… It was commissioned and designed in the Neo-Renaissance spirit. Therefore its structure and ornamentation evoke Antique temples following the architectural principles rediscovered during the Italian Renaissance, and the decor of different marble inlays is very Renaissance in style. The artists of the Prince of Chalais freely reinterpreted this style creating an original work of art, noticeably in the creativity of the rods in the fluting, of the pilasters, and the variations on the use of classical architectural elements.

Heir of the Beauvilliers, Duke of Saint-Aignan, owner of Saint-Aignan, the last Prince of Chalais endeavoured to restore his Chateau on a large scale: the chapel was built in 1839, a new polygon dungeon in 1840, when he also ordered this monumental chimneypiece for his dining room. The niches were destined to receive the busts of his Beauvilliers ancestors. His daughter, countess Choiseul-Aillecourt, pursued this Renaissance inspiration in the works she had done. The chimney piece was dismantled in the early 20th century.