Ref.11717
Modern fireback with Chinese-style decoration illustrating "The Great Mogul"

20th century cast iron fireback illustrating "The Great Mogul". The chinoiserie is a caracteristic of the Louis XV Rocaille style. A lot of chinoiserie was designed by Boucher, adapted also to furniture, objets d'art, materials, and porcelain. A very similar fireback is in the Musée of Orleans. CHINOISERIE, decorative work produced under the influence of Chinese art, applied particularly to the more fanciful and extravagant manifestations. Intimations of Eastern art reached Europe in the Middle Ages in the porcelains brought by returning travelers. Eastern trade was maintained during the intervening centuries, and the East India trading companies of the 17th and 18th cent. imported Chinese lacquers and porcelains. Dutch ceramics quickly showed the influence of Chinese blue-and-white porcelains. In the middle of the 18th cent. the enthusiasm for Chinese objects affected practically every decorative art applied to interiors, furniture, tapestries, and bibelots and supplied artisans with fanciful motifs of scenery, human figures, pagodas, intricate lattices, and exotic birds and flowers. In France the Louis XV style gave especial opportunities to chinoiserie, as it blended well with the established rococo . Whole rooms, such as those at Chantilly, were painted with compositions in chinoiserie, and Watteau and other artists brought consummate craftsmanship to the style.

Ref.13229
Cast iron fireback with coat of arms, 19th century

This fireback was made of cast iron in the 19th century from a 1719 model. It is adorned with a very rich decoration where we can see arms of alliance on the center held by two lions under a canopy surmounted by a duke crown and surrounded by the Saint-Louis order. We also see on the background eight flags with fleur-de-lys and on the top the date 1719.

Ref.13246
Louis XVI style cast iron fireback with perfume burner and mermaid

This square fireback was made of cast iron in the late 19th century. It is adorned with an important perfume burner on its center framed with two mermaids turning their back and holding in their hands two beautiful flowers garlands.