The French call a piece like this a vaisselier, from vaisselle, the dishes, and in a 19th-century country kitchen it was where a family stood its best plates upright for everyone to see, a quiet display of what the household had. Found in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and dating to the 19th century, it rises in a tall open rack beneath a scalloped frieze, with rails along the shelves to hold the plates, three drawers at its waist, and open shelves below. The rack kept the good faience on show and the drawers held the linens and cutlery, while the deep shelf at the bottom took the heavy pots and crocks that were too awkward to lift any higher. Sylvie fills its rack with blue and white plates gathered one at a time from years of market mornings, and on Sundays takes them down for lunch, the baguettes still warm in their baskets on the counter below.
