The shell in this tray comes from the windowpane oyster, named for a flat, pearly shell so thin it was once set into windows in place of glass. Found in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and made in the 20th century, it lays overlapping rounds of that capiz shell inside a frame of bent rattan that rises at each end into a looped handle. Rattan and shell were the mid-century answer to a slower, sunnier way of living, the materials that carried a little of the seaside into French living rooms and out onto terraces along the Mediterranean. Sylvie sets it on the coffee table with a carafe of water and two glasses, the shell catching the late afternoon light.
