Topic: St Mande on the rocks

[donaldf]

Hi All. Just got this lovely St. Mande. It is unusual in that it is mounted to a plinth of marble. Looking closely at it, I doubt that it is a broken door knob that has been mounted to the plinth at a later date. It looks very much like it was designed as is. There is even a very old protective base made out of some sort of paper, similar to the inner linings of very old books (which looks very contemporaneous with the marble and the weight. The paperweight has pillar of glass where other weights have a concave base (you can see the impression of this in the underside view). Has anyone seen anything like this?

Don

[tropdevin]

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Hi Don.  I have had a couple of French antiques mounted in this way (a Clichy and a Saint-Louis).  I was never brave enough to dismantle them to see if the paperweight was damaged.  But it makes a more practical paperweight, as you can pick up easily a more stable object that will not roll around too easily.

Alan