Antique French Limestone Trough

An antique French limestone trough, a knee-high block with a surface of soft chalk and ash peppered with dark mineral freckles. Rough tool paths run along the exterior with natural fractures cutting across them, and the stone has the slight warmth in daylight that pale limestone often does. The interior basin is deep for the size of the block.

It measures 56 inches wide, 36 inches deep and 28 inches high, a squarer proportion than most troughs, closer to a cube with the top hollowed out. It is a French farm piece, and the form says 18th or 19th century. The fractures in the exterior are old and run only part way; the block is sound.

It would stand at the threshold of a loggia or an entry court, where its weight slows the walk in, or in a courtyard as a still pool that takes the light of a fire at night. It also makes a deep planter for a single olive or fig. A stone trough with this much mass needs a forklift to set. This limestone trough has sold; we usually have squarer troughs of this kind in the yard, so ask and we will send what is current.