Trompe-l’oeil La La

I was perusing how the other half live over in Architectural Digest when my eyes halted upon an image of a kitchen wall adorned with a joyful array of decorative plates with 3-D vegetables, fruits, nuts, and other delightful foodstuffs. Needless to say, I was immediately obsessed. Turns out these plates are known as Trompe-l'oeil, and you can find them new and vintage on eBay, Etsy, and other ecom sites. Trompe-l'oeil is a French phrase meaning "deceives the eye" and is used to describe paintings, and in this case, decorative servingware, that create the illusion of a real object or scene. In this collection I've found a handful of Trompe-l'oeil plates that delight me. A lot of them are pretty expensive! But if nothing else, they make for some pretty fun window shopping.