19th c. French Side Table

In a 19th-century French country house, a side table like this stood in a hallway between rooms, holding a vase of flowers and the post that came in that morning. Found in Béziers, the table is built in pale oak with a wide scalloped apron running below the top, a small drawer at the center for the keys and the letters that needed somewhere to go, and four long cabriole legs ending in carved ball-and-claw feet - the kind of detail that came across to France from English furniture and never quite left. The wood has bleached pale and soft from years of light. Sylvie sets it in an entryway with a small lamp, a bowl for keys, and the flowers she picked up at the market on the way home.