Description
An oval mahogany wine cooler, George III period, circa 1790.
With excellent, unrestored, deep rich colour 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 with 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.
Further reading:
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 with his friends commemorating his succession to the estate of Raith in 1781. See Ralph Edwards, p. 640, fig. 7, showing the Zoffany painting with the oval brass-bound wine cooler in the foreground, in ‘The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture’ [sic].
