Farm & Workshop
Billhooks and pruning hooks: blade forms and vocabulary
A billhook combines a chopping edge with a hooked outline, but similar blades served several kinds of pruning and woodland work.
Read the field noteA FIELD GUIDE TO RURAL FRANCEThe art of
The art of
everyday work.
Tools that shaped the land. Baskets that carried the harvest. Objects that made a house a home.
Discover the working life of Gascony and Southwest France, one object at a time.
GASCONY & SOUTHWEST FRANCEFIELD NOTES · OBJECT GUIDES · RURAL STORIES
Not just things from the past.
Clues to how people lived.
Follow an object from its material and construction to the work it helped accomplish. Our guides connect practical observation with museum collections and regional history.
How we researchFOUR WAYS INTO THE RURAL WORLD
From field to hearth.Explore the collections
01Farm & Workshop
Tools for soil, timber and the workbench. Learn to read a blade, a handle and the traces of repair.
02Vineyard & Cellar
From the grape harvest to the cooper’s bench: the material culture of wine and Armagnac.
03Baskets & Harvest
Containers shaped by their work: carrying crops, collecting eggs and taking produce to market.
04Country Kitchen
The rural hearth, the dairy and the pantry, explored through the objects used to prepare and preserve food.
There is more than one rural Southwest.
The farms of the Gers, the tenant farming world of Chalosse and the changing landscapes of the Landes tell different stories. Museums help us keep those distinctions visible.
THE LIVING ENCYCLOPAEDIA
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Rural Life & Gascony
Gascony and modern departments: defining the study area
Gascony is a historical and cultural area, not a single modern French department. An object's locality should therefore be recorded more precisely than “Gascon”.
Read the field noteCountry Kitchen
The rural hearth as a working space
The rural hearth was a working arrangement of fire, supports and vessels. Understanding their positions makes individual utensils easier to interpret.
Read the field noteBaskets & Harvest
Willow baskets: identifying material cautiously
Willow basketry uses flexible rods, but a plant material should not be identified confidently from colour in a photograph alone.
Read the field noteVineyard & Cellar
Vine pruning tools and the annual vineyard cycle
Vine pruning tools belong to a seasonal sequence, but a curved blade is not enough to establish vineyard use.
Read the field noteFarm & Workshop
Sickles and scythes: comparing the working action
A sickle gathers a small cut; a scythe sweeps a wider swath. Their handles and working posture matter as much as their curved blades.
Read the field note