Oh heavens @princessmewmew "These type of customers" I've been there. Having owned a business that did floral arrangements, parties and sold antiques and painted furniture, you always get the "Well, couldn't you just..." and of course you want to think NO I couldn't It's a bit of art you appreciate after we've made it, but of course for most of it we'd change it, but never Antiques!

What I love the most about antiques IS the imperfection, the scratch or marr. It conjures up all sorts of visions what a hand or foot or anything did to the piece in the past.

Amazing piece, by the way. I love decoupage. It's a perfect example of 'mass production' at the time, when the West was in love with the stuff and Venetian furniture makes hired 'assistants' to hand colour art and cut it out and apply it just to keep up with the demand as they couldn't import the stuff from Asia fast enough.

Really is a wonderful piece, is it hard to ship back from France to you?