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Ante Bathroom and Bathroom |
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The unusual bathroom in Pompeian style is also known as King Faruk bathroom, because of its clear oriental features. Its realization was determined by Mr. Kees during the villa restoration works made between 1897 and 1912. It was heated by a powerful heating plant of German manufacture, as stated by the inscription on the radiator "Wilhelm Raven, Laipzig Dortmund". It was also lighted with a chandelier and some elegant wall lamps in golden bronze, co-ordinated with the plates containing the wall-plugs. Remarkable is also the graceful tap adorned by handles shaped like swan head and the pipe end like a beack.
The ante-bathroom walls still have the original peculiar tapestry with decorative patterns made according to the floral taste of the time. The tapestry too is of German manufacture and was realized by Usta Walton in Hannover, as indicated on the label behind the light switch cover near the door.
Little steps having small bardiglio yellow marble obelisks at their sides lead to the imposing bath made in light and cobalt blue glossy majolica. It is decorated with panels representing Nereids, sirens and aquatic patterns on the back wall, whose top is adorned by a central shell and two corner-pinnacles. According to the inventories of the beginning of last century in the bathroom there were also a marble and wood dressing-table an armchair, still existing but in the antebathroom, and eventually a "dormeuse" with a pillow and a carpet. All this gives an idea of what a bathroom was in the nineteenth century.
In the ante-bathroom there were also a three doors wardrobe, a little table, an armchair, a mirror, a dressing-table with a marble shelf (in refined "portoro"), a bidet, two chairs and several jugs, small bottles and different containers (actually kept in a showcase), still placed where it was indicated. This furniture revives the elegant rococo shapes and is probably work of carvers working in the end of the nineteenth century. According to what mentioned in the inventories, the room was completed by a door-curtain with double texture drapery. The white pottery bathroom was probably joined later by Mr. De Marchi to have more comfort.
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