Antique French Desk

Every French farmhouse had a table like this one, small and single-drawered, pulled up to the window for whatever the day asked of it, paying bills or writing letters or sitting down with a coffee. Found in Avignon, it dates to the early 20th century, a plank top over a shaped apron with one center drawer, standing on four legs braced low by an H-stretcher. The wood has darkened and figured over the years to a deep patchwork of browns, worn smooth on the top and the stretcher where hands and feet came to rest. Sylvie pushes it under a window as a desk, a lamp and a stack of books at one end and the drawer holding the pens and paper.