We haven't had a quiz for a while so I thought this rustic park bench was a good opportunity.
- 1 point if you can tell me where this is (there is a fairly obvious clue in the photo).
- 2 points if you can tell me what the bench is made of.
- 2 points if you can tell me when this bench was installed here (I don't know exactly but can make an educated guess. Anyone who gives me the right decade will get points. There is a possible clue in yesterday's post.)
- 1 point for every other example of this type of rustic architecture or park furniture that you can list.
- Points will be awarded for any other interesting or entertaining information on the subject.
The bench is in Bléré and made of concrete (see the comments below for a description). I suspect it was installed in the 1850s when there was a real craze for it and when the establishment and improvement of public parks was at its peak. There are many examples (too many to list) of this faux bois all over the Touraine Loire Valley and in Paris. The Parc des Buttes Chaumont comes to mind immediately, but also house just a few doors down the street from this park bench has an entrance made of it too.
2 points to chm, who has correctly identified the material the bench is made of. He made a good logical guess for the place, but he is wrong, and I suspect, much too late with the decade.
Lepre Delaforge is exactly right about how it is made (2 points) and when it became fashionable (1 point for this as he didn't say when he thought this bench dated from). A point for naming another example and 2 more points for all his extra information. A total of 6 points.
Mary and Bill get a point for their example.
Blog reader J-L M sent me an email to tell me he was very familiar with this particular bench and sent me a Streetview link to prove it. He gets a point for knowing where it was and 2 points for his extra info. Apparently his grandmother was installed in the maison de retraite signposted behind the bench, so he passed it quite often.
6 comments:
As the sign behind it says, this bench is in Céré-la-Ronde, proche du château de Montpoupon.
Even though it looks like wood, the bench on made of concrete.
Out of the top of my head, I'd say it dates back to the 1930's.
I was still sleeping when I wrote the above comment. I should have written, close to the château de Montpoupon, and the bench is made of concrete. Sorry about that.
It is "faux-bois"... a French technique that dates back to the 1850's...
it is an offshoot of the "rocailliers" work.
But it has been repaired with a beech effect...l.o.l.
Because of the reinforcment of iron bars, chicken mesh, etc...
they will all probably die... which is a pity.
They were the people who could create magnificent....
but transportable, rocks....
for rockeries and, more important to me, ferneries.
I have an 1897 gardening book that has a wonderful illustration of such a fernery.
The Victorians DID ferns in a big way...
and needed structures that resembled rock....
often with hidden rooms inside the structures...
I've also got an Art Nouveau fern collectors album...
with some pressed versions of very rare filmy ferns!!
There is a nice faux-bois balcony hidden in le G.P.
Bagnoles-de-l'Orne in Normandy has this "wood" in the park along the river. They used it for fencing, as well as benches. It's quite lovely and goes well with the overall look of the village.
I have made several usefully sized rocks for a new garden using this method. It saved all the effort of getting a truck, a small digger etc to transport them. And I used yoghurt to grow the lichen I needed for the aged effect.
2 points to chm, who has correctly identified the material the bench is made of. He made a good logical guess for the place, but he is wrong, and I suspect, much too late with the decade.
Lepres Delaforge is exactly right about how it is made (2 points) and when it became fashionable (1 point for this as he didn't say when he thought this bench dated from). A point for naming another example and 2 more points for all his extra information. A total of 6 points.
Mary and Bill get a point for their example.
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