Pair of morillos with chimney fender; France, 19th century.

Pair of morillos with chimney defense ; France, XIX century.
Bronze.
Measurements: 101 x 37 x 61 cm (x2).
The morillos are the metallic part without more decoration than a small vase of auction. The defense to which they are attached is where the work is concentrated: two volutes on squares serve as a base for a pedestal with mirrors, scallops and architectural motifs of Renaissance memory, on which stands a female bust topped by two urns.
These objects began to be used thanks to a series of improvements in heating introduced in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. By building narrower and shallower chimneys than the previous ones, the draft was improved, smoke was largely eliminated from the room and combustion was facilitated. In addition, the extension of their use in upper class homes brought a series of novelties in their decoration. This set of morillos and fenders was made to be placed right in front of the fire, raising the logs and preventing the embers from spreading throughout the room.
The decoration is clearly reminiscent of classicism: both the female busts on pillars and under scrolls (reminiscent of caryatids) and the mirrors and parchment motifs were inspired by Renaissance works. The lines of the work are reminiscent of both Regency and Louis XIV style examples, while the contour of the base responds to an inspiration related to the Baroque. It is this combination that situates the work in the 19th century, given the taste of the time for revisiting styles of the past in interior decoration. The quality is what indicates its French manufacture: the works that came out of these specialized bronze foundries were highly appreciated in Europe due to the magnificent work that the guilds had been doing in this country since the seventeenth century.
Being works destined for a very exclusive and imported public, they are today preserved in important private collections and prominent museums such as, for example, the Cerralbo in Madrid (based in the palace of the Marquis of Cerralbo), the National Museum of Romanticism in the same city, the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (note the similarity of lines between the base of this work and the pair of Benjamin Pyne of the late seventeenth century with catalog number 68.141.155 a and b).