Antique French Limestone Trough

A long, low antique French limestone trough, 90 inches end to end, with an exterior left almost as it came out of the ground: jagged, broken in profile, deeply gouged and chipped along the thick outer walls. The color is pale bone and dusty beige with light gray in the hollows, and the surface is porous enough to hold a shadow. Inside, the floor slopes gently toward a drainage hole cut through the side, and the rim rises and falls along its length.

It measures 90 inches wide, 30 inches deep and 16 inches high. At that height it sits well below a seated eye line, so it works as a horizontal line in a garden rather than an object you look at head on. A French farm piece; the form puts it in the 18th or 19th century. The breaks along the bottom edge are old and stable.

Along the edge of a gravel courtyard it becomes a shallow water feature; under a row of brass wall spouts it catches several streams at once; beside a summer kitchen a stone trough this long is an oversized wash sink. A charred timber wall behind it, or large-format porcelain around it, makes the rough surface the only texture in view. This limestone trough has sold. We usually have long low troughs on the water from France; ask and we will send what is current.