It comes as no surprise that Renee Hunt, owner of French Metro Antiques in Fayetteville, likes to collect antiques, but one collection that is especially dear to her is the growing assortment of French papier mache pieces that she shares with her 14-year-old daughter, Camille. “I have other favorites, but always planned for this one to be Camille’s,” Renee explains. “I wanted her to have a memory of her mother going to France to purchase antiques.”
Renee received the first piece, a crumber used to clean a linen tablecloth after meals, as a gift from a client, “a very Southern woman from New Orleans,” Renee remembers. “Then I began looking for them on buying trips and eventually I didn’t want to put them in the store to sell.” Camille was a little girl at the time, but already showed an interest, and the mother-and-daughter duo has since amassed 14 beautifully preserved pieces, all found near Paris during visits to France.
However, their rarity means that Renee doesn’t find one on every trip. Used in France beginning in 1850, during the reign of Napoleon III, papier mache allowed artisans to shape smaller objects not by carving or cutting but by molding. Translated as “chewed up paper,” it consists of paper paste with a strong glue binder, meaning the material is very fragile. Furthermore, their delicate hinges and mother-of-pearl inlay are easily broken with neglect or heavy use. “We like our boxes to have working hinges,” Camille explains. Making their collection especially rare, every piece also has intact abalone-colored mother-of-pearl and even maintains a shiny lacquer finish.
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