Vintage Glass Cake Stand

Outside Lyon there is a dealer we have known for years, and the loveliest things always come from the same place, his father's collection, built up over a lifetime of looking. This cake stand came from that collection, a wide flat plate of pressed glass patterned with a radiating flower of diamond and hobnail panels, raised on a spreading pedestal foot. It has the weight and the shine of old glass, curving the light and turning whatever sits beneath it into something worth a second look. Sylvie piles it with a cake, or just as happily with artichokes or fruit, anything worth lifting into view.