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Le fabricant peint la marionnette à la barbe blanche.

Le fabricant peint la marionnette à la barbe blanche.
The maker paints the puppet with the white beard.
From Lesson 381:Prepositions of characteristic and material (à, de)·French

Questions & Answers about Le fabricant peint la marionnette à la barbe blanche.

Why does the sentence use à la barbe blanche instead of avec une barbe blanche?
In French, when describing a distinct physical characteristic, feature, or accessory of a person or object, you use the preposition à followed by the definite article (le, la, l', or les). Therefore, "the puppet with the white beard" becomes la marionnette à la barbe blanche. If you used avec, it would sound more like the puppet is simply holding or accompanied by a beard.
If we wanted to say the puppet was made of wood, would we still use à?
No. To express the material something is made of, you must use de (or en) without an article. For example, a wooden puppet would be la marionnette de bois or la marionnette en bois. The preposition à is strictly for characteristics and features, while de is used for materials.
Does fabricant mean someone who makes fabric?
No, this is a classic false friend. Un fabricant means a "maker" or "manufacturer" of any kind of product, coming from the verb fabriquer (to make/manufacture). The French word for cloth or fabric is le tissu.
Why does the verb peint end in t? Doesn't the infinitive peindre have a d?
Verbs ending in -aindre, -eindre, and -oindre (like peindre, craindre, or rejoindre) are irregular. Unlike regular -re verbs that keep the d in the third-person singular (like il vend or il attend), this irregular group drops the d and takes a t in the singular: je peins, tu peins, il peint.

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