Art Deco Fireplace Mantle

The fire is optional. The red marble does most of the warming.

This Art Deco fireplace mantle is red marble, a deep oxblood threaded with fine white veins. Art Deco designers of the 1920s and 1930s loved a rich material and a streamlined form, and this piece has both. A shelf with a curved front sits above a bowed frieze with a recessed panel and small stepped corner details. Clustered, rounded columns drop down each side to curved feet. A flat hearth slab, in the same stone, extends in front. The geometry is strict and the color is anything but.

Few chimneys have been dressed better. The logs will have to try harder.