Shell Pedestal Sink

Now this is something you don't see every day! Found in Vauvert, this 1920s French sink was carved from limestone into the shape of a great open clam. The pedestal beneath is cut with deep acanthus leaves curling out from the base, and the shell-and-acanthus pairing is pure Beaux-Arts; sinks like this were built into the bathrooms of villas across the south of France, when running water was new enough to still be a thing worth carving stone around. The surface has lichened and softened the way garden stone does after a hundred years. Sylvie sets it in a powder room against a wall of old delft tiles with a stack of linen hand towels folded on a stool nearby.

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