My Stone aka. Marble Fruit and Country Living Magazine: Part 2,

Several readers emailed and asked me to post the article about my Vintage Marble Fruit in Country Living Magazine.

So here it is from Country Living Magazine, November 2001. It is from the front of the magazine where Country Living features collections.

You can click on the picture, and you might be able to read the article.

Google knows Stone Fruit as Marble Fruit so I am using both terms in this post.

Google says Stone Fruit~ American Country antiques dealers say Stone Fruit. They are the same thing.





A couple of notes about the photos. All the fruit is Vintage Stone Fruit.

The pear slice is a rare oversize "Split" in Vintage Stone Fruit vernacular.

The chickens are handmade wooden weather vanes from the top of a farm shed. The shed was on one of the last farms in the town of Lake Forest. The farm was sold and divided in the early 1990's.

The yellow bowls are old yellow ware.~ another of my collections. The fruit and these bowls are on a 1790's blue pewter cupboard.


Next I will be showing you more photos from my collection. And I will be sharing some photos from my readers of their collections.
Do you have any questions about Stone/Marble Fruit?

Country Living Magazine and My Stone Fruit

If I am known for anything it is my collection of Stone Fruit. My collection was featured in Country Living Magazine in November 2001. Later it was featured in the wonderful book Jessie Walker's Country Decorating.

So I was thrilled this week to find some additional pieces.



Stone Fruit was.... and still is... made in Italy.




It isn't really stone... rather it is marble.




First made around 1900 it is often shown with other "Country" decorations...




But, the heyday of it's popularity was the 1950's when it was used with other Italian decorating items...cream colored furniture, gilt mirrors, marble lamps, and tole.




I am drawn to the wonderful colors, great paint surface, and robust presence!

More about Stone Fruit in my next post.

Cherries! Cherries! Cherries! They are not what you think.

They are stone cherries, which are actually Italian marble fruit. In the antiques business and among collectors they are know as stone fruit. Long time readers of my blog may recall that I collect stone fruit. I have over 300 pieces and have probably sold at least a 100 more over the last 25 years.

My first purchase of stone fruit was a bowl's worth I found in the "treasure room" at a church rummage sale in Kennilworth, Illinois. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I was hooked. Those 15 pieces of stone fruit were the MOST expensive I ever bought.



In a conversation at the show last weekend one of my customers mentioned stone cherries and asked if I might have any "extras" I might want to sell.

So yesterday morning I started hunting around and found these bunches of cherries. I keep my stone fruit in a variety of wooden, ironstone, and yellowware bowls around the house.




Off went their pictures and now they will be moving to another Chicago suburb where they will begin a new life with another collector. She is in love with stone cherries and is on a mission to fill a bowl. Won't a whole bowl of cherries look great?




My stone fruit is featured in a book called Jessie Walker's Country Decorating and in the the November, 2001 issue of Country Living Magazine on page 32.