ANTIQUE FIREPLACE MANTELS AND CHIMNEYPIECES IN THE ROCOCO STYLE of the 18th and 19th centuries : This delicate and playful style, regarded by some at the time as risque was established in the 1730’s in France and became widespread in Europe during that century. Rococo fireplaces, mantels and chimneypieces in marble, stone and wood which in 18c England were frequently gilded, were again prolific in the Rococo Revival period of the early to mid 19th century mostly in Italy and France but many fine and grand examples were exported in great numbers to England, Ireland and Scotland. During the reign of Louis XV and the preceeding Regence period a more feminine frivolity and intimacy held sway in the arts as a reaction to the monumnetal formality of the Baroque period,which the rest of Europe also embraced. In England and Germany Rococo was consolidated with the Oriental influences of China to be seen in the chimneypiece mantels of Thomas Chippendale and in Frederick the Great's Schloss von Sans Souci " No Worries " in French in Potsdam. At its best, although not everybodys Tasse de Te, Rococo is to be enjoined , as Der Alte Fritz appreciated , to lighten the mood and to encourage gaiety and delight like the Capital City of its Pays D'origine....Voila !
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