Fireplace with bas-reliefs, Workshop of Prettini di Rezzato (Brescia),

This monumental salon fireplace offers a highly refined testament to the prestigious production of the historic Prettini Workshops of Rezzato, renowned for their mastery in working local marble and for their erudite practice of reclaiming and enhancing period architectural elements. The work stands as a perfect example of the critical updating of a High Renaissance artifact: starting from a load-bearing structure and original materials from the 16th century, the sculptors of the Brescian workshop carried out a skillful intervention of re-sculpting and integration. By revisiting 16th-century stylistic motifs, they restored them with a sculptural clarity and a formal unity of exceptional visual impact.

The piece is designed according to a solid aedicule structure, where robust molded bases support the front jambs. The architrave is entirely occupied by a continuous, richly storied bas-relief frieze, featuring a shaped heraldic shield at its center. Radiating symmetrically from this central coat of arms are elegant acanthus scrolls populated by phytoform elements, flower corollas, and anthropomorphic figures partially fused into the foliage, directly recalling the taste for Renaissance grotesques. Crowning the structure is a projecting upper cornice, decorated with a classic egg-and-dart motif of exquisite geometric regularity.

The front pilasters display a complex a candeliera (candelabra) decoration, arranged vertically over multiple registers alternating two-handled vases, baskets overflowing with fruit, confronted birds, and floral calyxes. The connection between the vertical supports and the horizontal frieze is handled by imaginative composite capitals, adorned with angular satyrs and masquerons of strong plastic quality.

The workshop’s exceptional level of execution and the sophistication of the design are fully appreciated when analyzing the outer sides: within a skillfully proportioned geometric panel, a precious roundel of rosso antico colored marble stands out, framed by a tightly-carved relief garland of leaves and fruit of clear Tuscan-Lombard lineage. Above this chromatic insert develops a candelabra featuring a basin filled with fruit, flanked by two leaping, stylized dolphins; meanwhile, in the lower section, a pair of mirrored winged griffins rest their paws on a flaming tripod vase, further enriching the work's fantastical and zoomorphic repertoire. The material contrast between the crispness of the Rezzato stone and the deep purplish tone of the marble inlaid on the sides lends the fireplace a note of absolute opulence and elegance, making it a masterpiece destined to embellish a high-prestige interior.