19th c. Alps Armoire

Found in Béziers but built in the French Alps, this 19th-century cupboard was the most important piece of furniture a mountain household owned. In an Alpine farmhouse it held everything that mattered, the linens, the clothes, the year's stores, and a piece like this was often made for a marriage and meant to outlast the couple. The carving was winter work, the long snowbound months a mountain carpenter spent covering the doors in little arched panels and fitting them with hand-forged iron, turning a storage cupboard into the proudest thing in the house. Sylvie uses it in an entry or a bedroom for linens and whatever needs hiding, the kind of piece that holds a room together.