The French call a corner cupboard like this an encoignure, from coin, the corner, a form that became fashionable in 18th-century France when furniture makers began fitting pieces into every angle of a room, often finished with a marble top. Found in Béziers but originally from Lille in the far north of France, this rare one curves its door out from the corner beneath a marble top, with open shelves rising above. Its patina is what sets it apart, layers of old grey-blue paint worn back over the years to reveal the earlier colours and bare wood beneath, the kind of surface that only decades of use can make. Sylvie tucks it into the corner of a dining room, a few old plates and a pitcher on the open shelves above and table linens kept behind the door.
