Perfumes
Mainly elaborated in Grasse, the world capital of perfumes, they are made by different methods of extraction of natural odorant materials, such as distillation or enfleurage, mainly used for the so-called "fragile" flowers, like jasmine. Fragonard, Molinard and Galimard represent the trinity of perfumers where you will find your olfactory happiness.
Scented candles
In the country of scents and perfumes, what could be more natural than to find scented candles? Many artisanal waxworks propose candles with the most varied perfumes, especially in the region of Grasse. Cast in a glass, terracotta or metal cup, their scents are infinitely variable.
Sundials
Here, the art of building sundials goes back to the High Antiquity when the possession of a watch was a luxury reserved for the most fortunate. To know the time, the shepherd in his pastures found a rudimentary but effective way: plant a stick (or gnomon) vertically in the ground and observe the movement of its shadow. Today, there are three types of sundials: the italic one which counts the hours from the sunset of the previous day; the classical one graduated with staggered hour lines and the Babylonian one which counts the hours from the sunrise. With time, the sundial will become a support of meditation, an invitation to reflect on the inexorable flight of time. The sundial on the bell tower of Saorge, a small village perched on the Roya river, was designed in 1880. It bears this quotation from the Italian poet Leopardi: "A me il sol, a te lo studio" which can be translated as "To me the sun, to you the study". The convent of Saorge, near the Italian border, has no less than eleven sundials. Like the village of Coaraze, in the hinterland of Nice, nicknamed the village of sundials, because each facade is decorated with one. Some were even designed by Jean Cocteau.
The santons
These small clay statuettes of religious origin recreate the universe of Provence. Many tourists from the Côte d'Azur take them as souvenirs. The pastoral of yesteryear offers the opportunity to count and represent the trades, the traditional corporations or a small people captured on the spot, in their usual attire: the miller, the shepherd, the priest, the washerwoman, the spinner with her spinning wheel, the baker with his bread under his arm, the fisherman with his fish at the end of his line (Bartoumieu), the farmhand a little silly (Ravi), the simpleton who smiles blissfully without even knowing why, wearing his night cap with a pompom (Gigé)... The whole village is thus found in the crib. The art of santons loses a little the religious character that it had in the last century around the crib where the ox and the donkey are next to each other. Today it allows to represent entire villages with old farmhouses, farmhouses, hamlets with narrow streets, herds of cows and sheep. We distinguish between industrially produced, standardized santons and handmade santons, which are more expensive because they are molded one by one in a plaster matrix and then hand-decorated with a luxury of detail that makes each of them a real little work of art. Many cities organize a santon fair during the month of December.
Handcrafted tableware
The potteries
There is a long tradition of pottery around Vallauris that enhances the value of everyday objects such as glazed tableware and artistic trinkets, whose purely decorative purpose meets the beauty of ancient pottery: candlesticks, incense burners, bowls ..
The blown glasses of Biot
the prestigious heir of a thousand-year-old tradition, the molten glass, kneaded by glassblowers, is transformed into a carafe, a candle jar or a pitcher, making each piece unique. The process is complex and requires a certain dexterity: the glassmaker picks up a large drop of molten glass from the furnace at the end of his cane. He then spins it instantly to avoid the immediate mass, rolls it on a cast iron table called marble and then blows into the cane, forming a small red pear-shaped ball: this is the first draft of the piece. The glassmaker picks up glass a second time and rolls the ball of molten glass in a wet piece of wood, the mallet. He blows while regularly rotating his cane and gives the piece the desired shape with a metal clamp, the irons. It is then necessary to act very quickly before the temperature falls: the glassmaker inflates the piece by blowing into his cane and rounds, flattens or lengthens the piece to give it its final shape. Finally, he places the handle and welds it by fusion, then detaches the piece that has already cooled down considerably. Watching the glassmakers at work, one has the impression of great ease. However, it takes ten years of learning to completely master this technique.
Petanque balls
Since ancient times, the game of skill that consists of placing objects in a throw has known various variants. It is often said that the Roman legionaries used to throw pebbles polished by the sea or by the bed of the Durance river. To make them, they used turned wood balls, but the dry wood cracked under the shocks. In the 19th century, craftsmen specialized in the manufacture of boxwood balls entirely studded: up to 1,200 nails were then used and their realization required no less than twelve hours of artisanal work! In 1923, the first cast bronze balls appeared. Today, each ball is the result of a long industrial work. The name "pétanque" comes from the Provençal word tanca which means "ficher", "planter droit", because before throwing, you have to keep your feet tanned (immobile).
