Large Fireback Allegorizing A False Rumor (120x83 Cm)

Important fireback cast in the first half of the 18th century, from the Louis XV period, depicting a vouivre or guivre being ridden by a jester who has bitten off her tongue and is threatening her with his own oversized tongue. It's an allegory of a false rumor stifled, a fallacious rumor destroyed. The scene in a cartouche, adorned with garlands of flowers, is flanked by a set of acanthus scrolls. In the upper corners of the frame, two faces wearing pileus (ancestor of the Phrygian cap) represent winged Ulysses, the guardian figure of the manipulator of rumors, the cruel and cunning demagogue. It is framed by two bezels adorned with stapled laurel branches, a sunflower and a perfume burner.

Our last two photos:
- Engraving entitled "Draconis Alati figura ex Parco" from the iconographic corpus of Ulysse Aldrovandi, famous Bolognese naturalist philosopher and physician, (1522-1605), kept at the University Library of Bologna, Natural History in 13 volumes, published between 1599 and 1668, whose wooden matrices are kept at the Museo di Palazzo Poggi in Bologna.
- Head of Ulysses carrying a pileus, depicted on a 3rd-century BC coin from Ithaca.C.

Plaque found at Reims in the Marne.
Weight 182 kg.

Bibliography: CARPENTIER H., Plaques de cheminées, Tome premier, F. DE NOBELE, Paris, 1967, p. 144, n° 322.

Sources :
- Le bruit qui vole, Francis Larran, Presses universitaire du Midi, ch. III, p. 225-247.
https://books.openedition.org/pumi/11973?lang=fr
- https://bbcc.regione.emilia-romagna.it/pater/loadcard.do?id_card=208922
- https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysse

Thanks to Stephen Kinloch-Pichat for sharing his knowledge.
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