Rare Marble Coffee Table

From a grand maison inside the walls of Avignon, this French marble coffee table came out of a house built when Avignon was still a city of popes and merchants and walled gardens. Found in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, it has an oval marble top set on a hand-forged wrought iron base, the legs scrolled in soft curls that meet at a central stretcher pinched into a single iron flourish. Marble and iron tables like this lived in the courtyards and salons of the great Avignon houses, set under the shade of a plane tree or just inside a tall window where the light fell across the stone all afternoon. Sylvie sets it in front of a low sofa with a stack of art books, a bowl of fruit, and a small vase of whatever's blooming.