This superb fireplace is typical of French sculpture around the time of the so-called second school of Fontainebleau. The carvings are executed with great brio, even if the proportions of some of the figures and their contorted poses are sometimes less than elegant. In the great narrative relief above, the sculptor has compressed vertically the much higher and more spacious composition of Luca Penni (see illustration A) to fit within a more horizontal rectangle, while retaining the majority of his figures. This results in a claustrophobic and hectic atmosphere. Where Penni had showed the legs of the three muses in the foreground with their knees slightly bent, the sculptor has made them kneel down. The smaller flanking reliefs also betray a horror vacui, though in the case of the thiasos this is justified by classical precedent. But so tightly packed are the beasts around Orpheus that he has to sit on the back of the lion (instead of on the ground as was usual) and looks as though he is about to be trampled by a horse rearing over him from the right.

The 'caryatid' figures are not as elongated as they would have been in the first school of Fontainebleau (cf. Rosso's and Primaticcio's Stucchi in the Gallery of François I and bedroom of Henri II {{check nomenclature}}) Instead, their height measured in 'heads' approximates to the classical canon of 8 'heads', yet their legs are very thick and their hands and feet are large (especially those of Minerva or Peace). This has the effect of making them seem very powerful and dramatic, which their Mannerist forebears were not. They represent Peace and Commerce (for Mercury was the classical patron of trade), thus symbolizing the benefits of law and order confirmed on the populace by the Assize Court. The shafts that each holds are pierced at top and bottom to make joints with possibly wooden additions which might have served to hold devices or pennants appropriate to the court.

The impression is of a technically very competent sculptor who was straining every nerve to create a masterpiece, but who lacked a sure enough sense of anatomical structure and of classical figure composition to discipline his enthusiasm into producing a great work of art. One is left with a splendid and impressive example of architectural ornamentation, which at this size is extremely rare in France (owing to the depredations of the French Revolution) let alone beyond her frontiers.

A vital clue to the authorship of the fireplace is given in the central inscription which names Ligier Richier of Saint-Mihiel (c.1500-1566) as its author (clearly the prominent tablet would not orginally have contained the sculptor's signature, but perhaps a motto pertaining to its subject matter or original location). It has emerged (we thank Dr. Ian Wardropper of the Art Institute of Chicago, who identified this work and graciously shared this information with us) that an owner in the 19th century, Monsieur Noël, a prominent collector in the town of Saint-Mihiel, had Ligier's name inserted, to manifest his personal attribution to the most famous sculptor of the town in the sixteenth century and to document his restoration, for it originally also read 'Restauré à Nancy en 1828' (now removed). In his published catalogue he argued the case for Ligier's authorship, but was honest enough to print in a footnote that a rival collector and authority, M. Bonnaire, believed the mantelpiece to be by one of Ligier's less well-known, though very able, children.

The chimneypiece evidently came from the Salle des Séances or meeting hall of the principal assize court of province of the Barrois in Lorraine, where the sovereign held court on occasion. The Maison de la Prévôté of Saint-Mihiel, where the Tribunal des Grands Jours sat, was redesigned only in 1571, and this was after the death of Ligier Richier, so his authorship can be excluded.

Another chimneypiece, closely similar in style judging from photographs (present location is unknown) was carved for the Abbey at Saint-Mihiel, and installed in some buildings renovated between 1570 and 1586: this had appropriately religious subjects from the old Testament: Moses striking water from the rock and the Gathering of the Manna, and flanking female caryatid herm-figures presenting bread and water. That chimneypiece was once owned by Bonnaire (cf. H. Bernard, in La Revue Lorraine illustrée, July-September, 1911, pp. 112-113).

The most recent scholar to study the matter has attributed the chimneypieces (in absentia so to speak) to Gérard Richier (1534-1600), son of Ligier (Pressouyre, p. 55, note 112). After a brief sojourn in Geneva with his father (1566-1567) where Ligier died, Gérard returned to the family house in Saint-Mihiel (1573). He also worked at the Ducal Palace of Nancy (1578), and for various convents in the surroundings.There is a relief on the Tomb of Blaise Lescuyer in St. Etienne, Saint-Mihiel, that was attributed to Gérard in a recent exhibition catalogue (Bar-le-Duc, 1985, no. 85). It shows the deceased recumbent on a panel between a pair of allegories of Faith and Charity, with a cartouche of a skull below, and it bears considerable resemblances to the present chimneypiece.

Gérard Richier's artistic personality is only just in the process of being discovered, and the present chimneypiece is a significant addition to his oeuvre.