mantel-piece

mantel-piece (plural mantel-pieces)

1. Archaic form of mantelpiece.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 52:

     On the mantel-piece two alabaster figures supported each a little lamp, whose flame was tinted by the stained flowers; […]

   • 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 242–243:

     It was Friday—the next day was Saturday—the third—he read it on the japanned card-rack, which was nailed near his mantel-piece—was Sunday—he knew not how he should face his parishioners.

   • 1897, Edith Wharton, Ogden Codman Jr., “Fireplaces”, in The Decoration of Houses, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 79:

     […] while the suites of small rooms which had come into favor under the Regent led to a reduction in the size of mantel-pieces, and to the use of less massive and perhaps less architectural ornament. In the eighteenth century, mantel-pieces in Italy and France were almost always composed of a marble or stone architrave surmounted by a shelf of the same material, while the over- mantel consisted of a mirror, framed in mouldings varying in design from the simplest style to the most ornate.