Box House Antiques Ltd. Serveware, Ceramics, Silver and Glass

An oval mahogany wine cooler, George III period, circa 1790. With excellent, unrestored, deep, rich color and patination, and original solid-brass carrying handles to either side. This smart Georgian wine cooler (cellaret or cellarette) retains its original waxed surface and patina. It is brass-bound (of coopered construction) supported on its separate, original stand. Raised on square tapering legs terminating in its original brass cappings and castors. It can be also used as a small side table or lamp table. Comes with a bespoke, clear, safety glass cover. Nb. An antique oval wine cooler of this design is quite rare, and makes a very elegant addition to a dining room sideboard, or an occasional table in a drawing room. By removing the top, some examples of this form of wine cooler were often later converted to be used as jardinières. See Christies, 23rd May 2013, lot 23: a mahogany oval wine cooler sold @ £17,500. Literature: Ralph Edwards CBE FSA 'Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture', Hamlyn, London (Fourth Impression 1972) p. 640: “In late Georgian times the wine cooler was generally a plain mahogany tub hooped with brass and standing on four legs. Mary Kenyon in a letter to her mother (October 30th 1775) wrote that among the furniture in the parlour of her new house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was a ''handsome cistern of mahogany with brass hoops etc. under the sideboard”. A typical example of a brass-bound wine cooler is shown in a picture by Zoffany, representing William Ferguson...

A rare English mahogany wine waiter or bottle carrier / stand. Of superb colour and patination. Mid-18th century, late George II period, circa 1750-1760. This fine, larger-than-usual, Georgian example retains its original lion mask gilt-brass mounts, and has survived with its original fretted angles. Rare to find in this excellent condition in view of the considerable use to which it would have put been during the last 265 or so years. These scarce open-topped Chippendale period wine waiters serve as bottle carriers raised on legs, with brass castors. They were designed to allow bottles to be circulated around a dining room for guests to help themselves. They had divisions, separated from their stands, and also had a central arched-shaped carrying handle. When not-in-use these wine waiters, or wine wagons...