At the French flea market you can find almost anything. It seems to me if you line up every linen bed sheet, dish, wine glass, table, chair, mirror, sconce, vase, painting, silver tray etc. etc… that you can find at the French flea market, into a single row… it would circle the world twice. I am not kidding.
Here are a few examples of French treasures you can find easily. French antique things that once use to be at the bottom of a cardboard box, or stuffed in someone’s attic before being sold at the flea market in France.
Bottles before plastic, reusable and made to be seen. A toiletry bottle, pharmacy jar and a small liquor bottle from a missing traveling set. Call me crazy but I usually pour the contents from the new plastic containers such as shampoo, lotion, liquid soap and such into antique pretty things. It is the way I live in my world, surround myself with flea market wanna-be treasures, making the ordinary seem like a holiday of simple wonder.
The French flea markets are loaded with pretty little things. Hand painted glasses and dainty dessert plates. Imagine a feminine bar! Where the liquor is disguised as perfume and the liquor glasses hold powder puffs and Q-tips, and the dessert plates holds soaps pretending to be cakes?
My Belle Mere (Mother-in-law,) has the real deal. When I go to her house I spend hours admiring her pretty things. She has the antique bug worse than me, actually most of the things in her home have been passed down through generations. Lucky duck! The best part about her inheritance is one day it might belong to me that she uses these things daily.
The little broom is used to sweep off the table crumbs! Did you know that? I love that little broom.
French Husband’s favorite thing in his Mother’s home is not the little broom, but that upside down bronze pig?! The pig is a match holder, and you strike the matches on its underbelly. French Husband told me as a little boy he often lifted the pig’s head, emptied the matches out, then turned it upside down and left it like this for his Mother to find. He still does it when he visits his Mom and his Mother HATES that!!
I think my Belle Mere is going to give me one of her antique monogram table cloths for my birthday, I wish it were the little broom, French Husband wishes it were the pig. Maybe all three? Though I highly doubt it.
Whoops I am getting off the subject of what you can find at the French flea markets… as I was saying…
These type of pretty things are common, and very easy to find at the French flea market.
Hardware too. Do you see the size of those keys?
France’s flea markets are loaded with pretty things. It never ceases to amaze me of the volumes and volumes of treasures it unearths each weekend.
For example, nightstands… the choice is endless, this one is unusual because it is oval, and has three drawers. Most are square shaped and have a large interior shelf, that is lined with marble or zinc, with a door to close it off. Inside this space is where one would put a chamber pot… a nightstand wasn’t for a clock, or a lamp or a book…it was for a chamber pot first and foremost.
Another one of the those French classic beds that you can find in any second hand shop.
But this rates as the number one classic French bed set. The thicker and larger the shell on top of the head board the better it is… at least that is what they say. An armoire, a bed, and a nightstand usually cost around a 1000 euro.
French ephemera…don’t get me started. A mixed- media or scrapbooker’s paradise. Personally I like books better than the cards, and antique letters better than lace.
…..Okay, I’ll post more later today when I come back from the flea market ….
A few more flea market finds that I saw today…
French dining room chair with a new do.
One of the many shadow boxes with a million little things to gawk out. Do you see the teaspoon mold? The small liquor vask? The compass?
This oil painting and gilded frame (circa 1900s three feet x 2 feet) sold for 700 euro.
…and if the French flea market does not have French linens then it is not a French flea market.
See you tomorrow xx
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