Tiled stove

Description

This elegant architectural stove formerly stood on the first floor of a private house at Totentanz 10, Basle. It is the work of Luc Walter II, one of the last great Strasbourg stove makers (signed with a heart and the initials LW scratched into the tiled 'neck'). Pilasters, architraves, and gables form a classicising structure that is decorated with applied gold mounts. By the early C19 a wide and rich range of printed models for ornaments and figured reliefs was available, and so called ornements d'architecture were pre cast in a synthetic material that was like a harder version of stucco. In 1805 Joseph Beunat had founded a Manufacture de Pates et de Decors in Sarrebourg (Lorraine) that sold such decorative, semi finished products internationally. In 1825, the factory moved to Scharrachbergheim in Alsace and its head office to Strasbourg. Hitherto it has been assumed that the applied golden ornaments on this stove were from the Beunat factory, but in fact they are moulded in clay on the tile and were fired, glazed and cold gilt as an integral part of the structure. For reasons of economy the acanthus frieze on the back of the stove is not gilded.