Fireplace Delivery

About Us Fireplace Deliveries If you have ever read our about us section on our web pages, you might be forgiven for thinking does he really still do that any more – or is he sat behind  a desk with his feet up. Well for the past nine weeks our regular van driver Eddie has been off work with a crushed hand, he was carrying a very large cast iron combination fireplace with another person and unfortunately fell, with the fireplace landing on his hand.  He went to hospital and to cut a long story short he had an operation on his hand, and had some metal screws through his hand to hold his little finger back on. he is now back on the road to recovery and should be back in his van which I know he his missing. I hope! Any way back to the story. Over the last nine weeks I have been delivering all our fireplace deliveries, some of our customers might recognize me from when they come into the showroom to buy a fireplace. It is very interesting to see our end result and see where our fireplaces end up, and the type of house’s that they start their new life in. To give you an idea of my commitment to our delivery service and the type of deliveries we do here at Victorian fireplaces. Friday South Devon it was a timed drop, I was there for 6am then onto North Devon for before 8 am (just made it) Then on to Bristol for an am delivery got there at 10am. Then over the bridge (at a cost of £10.90 very expensive) into South Wales then up to Lydney, arrived at 11.50 am, all done before dinner time and all customers very happy. Saturday load van for Monday’s deliveries which happens to be a quick trip up to Aberdeen (every three to four weeks we have a trip up to Scotland) for a timed drop between 7am and 8 am. I set off at 12.30 am, and arrived at the customer at 7.30 am customer was very happy (read review). Then on to Huntley (read review) approx 1 hour 15 minutes out side Aberdeen arrived 9.30 am again customer was very pleased especially when he only ordered the fireplace the night before, amazing service. Now onto Bo’Ness Edinburgh arrived at 1.30 pm again customer very pleased. Last call Harwick arrived at 3.30 pm. what a day great achievement all customers are very pleased with the delivery service, now on my weary way back home, nice steady drive back. Arrived back at 8.30pm, I’m off to bed!

Best selling fireplace – W/E 10/05/09

Small fireplaces

Regal fireplace was the most popular fireplace last week, bought with the Bedford solid oak mantel at 42 inches, also available in pine (Bedford pine mantel shown). The Roundel pine or oak mantel  is also a popular choice at sizes from 44 inches. Our customer choose the Regal fireplace with solid fuel, gas and electric versions are also available. At 42 inches wide this fireplace will fit on most chimneys.

Portrait of a Lady

By Jean Leon Gerome

Jean-Léon Gérôme (May 11, 1824 – January 10, 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.

Born at Vesoul (Haute-Saône), he went to Paris in 1840 where he studied under Paul Delaroche, whom he accompanied to Italy (1843-1844). He visited Florence, Rome, the Vatican and Pompeii, but he was more attracted to the world of nature. Taken by a fever, he was forced to return to Paris in 1844. On his return he followed, like many other students of Delaroche, into the atelier of Charles Gleyre and studied there for a brief time. He then attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1846 he tried to enter the prestigious Prix de Rome, but failed in the final stage because his figure drawing was inadequate.

He tried to improve his skills by painting The Cockfight (1846), an academic exercise depicting a nude young man and a lightly draped girl with two fighting cocks and in the background the Bay of Naples. He sent this painting to the Salon of 1847, where it gained him a third-class medal. This work was seen as the epitome of the Neo-Grec movement that had formed out of Gleyre’s studio (such as Henri-Pierre Picou (1824-1895) and Jean-Louis Hamon), and was championed by the influential French critic Theophile Gautier.

Gérôme abandoned his dream of winning the Prix de Rome and took advantage of his sudden success. His paintings The Virgin, the Infant Jesus and St John (private collection) and Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France) took a second-class medal in 1848. In 1849 he produced the paintings Michelangelo (also called In his studio) (now in private collection) image of the painting and A portrait of a Lady (Musée Ingres, Montauban).

In 1851 he decorated a vase, later offered by Emperor Napoleon III of France to Prince Albert, now part of the Royal Collection at St. James’s Palace, London. He exhibited Bacchus and Love, Drunk, a Greek Interior and Souvenir d’Italie, in 1851; Paestum (1852); and An Idyll (1853).

In 1852 Gérôme received a commission by Alfred Emilien Comte de Nieuwerkerke, Surintendant des Beaux-Arts to the court of Napoleon III, for the painting of a large historical canvas, the Age of Augustus image of the painting. In this canvas he combines the birth of Christ with conquered nations paying homage to Augustus. Thanks to a considerable down payment, he was able to travel in 1853 to Constantinople, together with the actor Edmond Got. This would be the first of several travels to the East : in 1854 he made another journey to Turkey and the shores of the Danube, where he was present at a concert of Russian conscripts, making music under the threat of a lash.

In 1854 he completed another important commission of decorating the Chapel of St. Jerome in the church of St. Séverin in Paris. His Last communion of St. Jerome in this chapel reflects the influence of the school of Ingres on his religious works.

To the exhibition of 1855 he contributed a Pifferaro, a Shepherd, A Russian Concert, The Age of Augustus and Birth of Christ. The last was somewhat confused in effect, but in recognition of its consummate rendering the State purchased it. However the modest painting, A Russian Concert (also called Recreation in the Camp) was more appreciated than his huge canvases.

In 1856 he visited Egypt for the first time. This would herald the start of many orientalist paintings depicting Arab religion, genre scenes and North African landscapes.

Gérôme’s reputation was greatly enhanced at the Salon of 1857 by a collection of works of a more popular kind: the Duel: after the Masked Ball (Musée Condé, Chantilly), Egyptian Recruits crossing the Desert, Memnon and Sesostris and Camels Watering, the drawing of which was criticized by Edmond About.

In 1858 he helped to decorate the Paris house of Prince Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte in the Pompeian style. The prince had bought his Greek Interior (1850), a depiction of a brothel also in the Pompeian manner.

In Caesar (1859) Gérôme tried to return to a more severe class of work, the painting of Classical subjects, but the picture failed to interest the public. Phryne before the Areopagus, King Candaules and Socrates finding Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia (1861) gave rise to some scandal by reason of the subjects selected by the painter, and brought down on him the bitter attacks of Paul de Saint-Victor and Maxime Du Camp. At the same Salon he exhibited the Egyptian Chopping Straw, and Rembrandt Biting an Etching, two very minutely finished works.

He married Marie Goupil (1842-1912), the daughter of the international art dealer Adolphe Goupil. They had four daughters and one son. Upon his marriage he moved to a house in the Rue de Bruxelles, close to the music hall Folies Bergère. He expanded it into a grand house with stables with a sculpture studio below and a painting studio on the top floor.

Gérôme was elected, on his fifth attempt, a member of the Institut de France in 1865. Already a knight in the Légion d’honneur, he was promoted to an officer in 1867. In 1869 he was elected an honorary member of the British Royal Academy. The King of Prussia Wilhelm I awarded him the Grand Order of the Red Eagle, Third Class. His fame had become such that he was invited, along with the most eminent French artists, to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

The theme of his Death of Caesar (1867) was repeated in his historical canvas Death of Marshall Ney, that was exhibited at the Salon of 1867, despite official pressure to withdraw it as it raised painful memories. He returned successfully to the Salon in 1874 with his painting Eminence grise (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). In 1896 he painted Truth Rising from her Well, an attempt to describe the transparency of an illusion. He therefore welcomed the rise of photography as an alternative to his photographic painting. In 1902 he said “Thanks to photography, Truth has as last left her well”.

Jean-Léon Gérôme died in his atelier on 10 January 1904. He was found in front of a portrait of Rembrandt and close to his own painting “The Truth”. At his own request, he was given a simple burial service without flowers. But the Requiem Mass given in his memory was attended by a former president of the Republic, most prominent politicians, and many painters and writers. He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery in front of the statue Sorrow that he had cast for his son Jean who had died in 1891.

He was the father-in-law of the painter Aimé Morot.

Fireplaces in Art

Large Adam pine mantel

Large adam pine mantel inspired by Robert Adam Designs

Adam style fireplaces

The Adam style (or Adamesque) is a style of neoclassical architecture and design as practised by Scottish architect Robert Adam (1728- 1792) and his brothers. A book of engraved designs made the “Adam” repertory available throughout Europe. A parallel development of this early phase of neoclassical design is French “Louis XVI style.

Robert Adam’s main rivals were James Wyatt, whose many designs for furniture were less known outside the wide circle of his patrons, because he never published a book of engravings, and Sir William Chambers, who designed fewer furnishings for his interiors, preferring to work with able cabinet-makers like John Linnell, Thomas Chippendale and Ince and Mayhew. So many able designers were working in this style in London from ca. 1770, that the style is currently more usually termed Early Neoclassical.

Georgian fireplaces.

George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924)

Lady seated by fireplace

Mother and Daughter

By George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924)

George was born on the 24th July 1839 in Norfolk. He was apprenticed for five years to the Dalziel brothers in London, studying wood engraving. He married Jenny Dalziel, the daughter of Robert Dalziel – they had three sons and two daughters: George Goodwin Jnr who also became an artist; Charles Robert, William Richard, Florence and Mary Maud. They all lived together at Hawkhurst House, Steeles Road, Hampstead. George abandoned wood engraving for the more versatile and profitable mediums of watercolour and oil painting. His apprenticeship in engraving enhanced the accuracy and detail of his paintings. He quickly became on of the most sought after and well known artists in England. George’s wife Janet died in March 1883 and George later married Edith Golightly with who he had two girls, Constance Ivy and Edith May.

George’s paintings often portrayed the upper classes and ultra-fashionable female beauties in opulent settings. His depiction of this beauty was heightened by his attention to detail with dress, and richly decorated interiors. During the period his paintings would have been considered traditional, especially compared to the work of contemporaries such as James McNeill Whistler and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Fireplaces in art