This Week's Top 5 Favorite 1stdibs Items: Conversation Starters!

We almost always have a theme for our weekly lists of the most recent 1stdibs items. Sometimes it's a group of five furniture pieces or accessories grouped by color, other times it's subject matter, or shape, or style. We've covered nearly all of them at one time or another. But sometimes what a group of items have in common is something much more abstract, something philosophical even. Such is the case with today's five pieces. They don't all have the same color, they're not all the same style and they certainly don't have the same shape, but, all these pieces do have something in common: they all make great conversational pieces in an interior!

1) Marcel Guillard Vase
This vase makes for a great conversational piece not necessarily for what it is---an Art Deco vase by Marcel Guillard with a copper craquelure luster glaze---but for what it could be. Doesn't this just look like some priceless Egyptian artifact? Or something else similarly mysterious? This piece would definitely have to come with a great story.
Price: $3,900
Dealer: Leah Gordon

2) Wonderfully detailed cast iron lion's paw
The description of this piece says it's a lion's paw, and we guess we believe it, but it certainly had us staring at the photos with a perplexed look for a few minutes. And chances are any of your guests, once they've spotted this cast iron piece on table in your living room, will be a bit perplexed, too.
Price: $950
Dealer: DHS Designs

3) 1980s Octopus Coffee Table by Henri Fernandez
Look at this thing! Not only functional as a coffee table, but the form and structure of this furniture piece is a gilt brass octopus-shaped base. And not just any octopus---it's an undulating, energetic and darn near angry one. Quite the thing to have in a living space to spark some questions.
Price: $10,081
Dealer: 1stdibs paris

4) Collection of Painted Human Heart Studies
Unless your heart surgeon, a wall filled with paintings of the human heart---and very anatomically correct ones at that---will elicit some wonder and confusion on the part of any guests to your home. And, it'll be a great starting off point for a conversation.
Price: $7,500
Dealer: Urban Country

5) Sculptured wax head of Jesus
This one might be a bit tongue-and-cheek, and we certainly hope we don't offend anyone, but any religious iconography, and especially an odd one like a sculptured wax head, are bound to leave some guests questioning the piece.
Price: $4,500
Dealer: George Subkoff Antiques

Don't forget to check out the rest of this week's listings from 1stdibs, where you can find more fabulous, one-of-a-kind show-stopping pieces, as well as a number of other great pieces!