Here is another aspect of our new home:
This is an American piece, 7' long, and 7' high: we know these dimensions because we've renovated more than one house in the 50 years we've owned it and measured the desk more than once to make sure it would fit.
We found it outside of Perkiomenville, a small country town west of Philadelphia, that had had a weekly auction/flea market site since forever (don't know if that has been true in recent years or not!). It was sitting outside a small house, whose owner did a weekly yard sale to catch all the traffic going by. Having made a deal to buy it, we asked where it came from: the seller told us it came from a house in west Philadelphia that had been left to her mother by the rabbi, a neighbor, whom she had nursed in his declining years....so it became a sort of instant heirloom in our family, and has always been referred to as "The Rabbi's Desk".
Over the years, it has been in kitchens, dining rooms, and, as now, living rooms. And always a focal point for our own most important Quimper. The compositions change with each move!
That's "Rooster Row" on the top now, left to right:
American wooden folk art, early unsigned Quimper large pot, two contemporary metal birds.
And tucked under: a very large market basket, bought even before the desk, from an
antiques shop in Phoenixville (can still hear the dealer saying, "Old Mr.........carried this into Philadelphia to the Reading Terminal Market every Saturday to shop"). Plus a dear little hooked rug that has my favorite basket-of-flowers motif done in perfect Quimper colors (made in Nashville!).
Visits...collections...compositions...memories!
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