Vintage French Enamel Menuiserie Sign 1940s - 12¼" x 22½"

This cheerful oval enamel sign has hung at Chanteduc, Patricia and Walter Wells's farmhouse in Vaison-la-Romaine, for years — and it arrived with a story already attached. Picked up from a dealer in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, it dates from the 1940s and reads "Menuiserie — Au fond de la cour": "Woodworker — at the back of the courtyard," with a bold directional arrow pointing firmly to the left. The sign is rendered in vivid mustard yellow with crisp black lettering arched across the upper half of the oval, and a graphic arrow running beneath. Walter, a keen woodworker with his own atelier at Chanteduc, bought it with characteristic wit. As he explains, "I bought it as a joke because it pointed away from my atelier — an expression of modesty." That self-deprecating humour is entirely in keeping with the sign's charm.