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A superb and rare Italian, Renaissance chimneypiece after a design by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) sculpted in Istrian stone. The moulded shelf decorated with dentil and beautifully carved egg and dart. The simple rounded frieze centred with acanthus leaves as are the corners, the architrave with pearl and reel. The jambs are carved from one solid piece of stone in the form of scroll shaped fluted consoles upheld by lions paws, the whole on squared blocks. North Veneto, late 16th early 17th century. Andrea Palladio is probably the most influential and best known of all the architects who lived before our own time. His fame and reputation out lived the Baroque, the taste for the neo-Gothic. His architectural system, in which structure and ornament, function and appearance, are closely integrated has been seen for centuries as the source of good taste.
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