ANCIENT LIQUOR CADDIE 19Th CENTURY NAPOLEON III PERIOD

Liquor caddie 19Th century Napoleon III period .
16 original glasses and 4 decanters gilded in the fine gold
12,6 / 9,8 / 10,9 in
The liqueurs box are small masterpieces of accuracy and ingenuity which were not still collected as of simple ornamental objects. At the end of the 18th century the first liqueurs box allowed to make spend time pleasantly during the long journeys in coach. In 1840 the rising, consumer bourgeoisie in the excess, discovering the enjoyments of the luxury and the decoration, thanks to an environment and social very favorable, could only facilitate the emergence of refined objects such as liqueurs boxes , tea boxes , cigar boxes. The story would want whether it is George Sand who launched the fashion in the XIXth century...
It is under the Empire that liqueurs box took their development. Up to the Restoration, the forms were sober and rigorous and caskets in mahogany contained small motives in marquetry. The amateurs bought them in the shops of the Palais Royal. Some craftsmen pushed the refinement up to the extreme, the most audacious concentrated their efforts on the inside of liqueurs box , with eight, twelve, sixteen or thirty two gold-coloured, square bottle of section with mostly two glasses. Crystal of Creusot, Saint Louis, Clichy, Sèvres, Pantin or molded Baccarat, engraved , worked on acid, covered with sand, cut in point of diamond, twisted, gilded in the fine gold... The inventiveness was without limit!
In the 1835/1840 the fashion of the crystal of color, imported by Bohemia, came to enrich the existing offer. The monarchy of July and the advent of the liberal upper middle class made an inescapable object, in the point to come the wedding present typifies of the French family. Quickly the aristocratic and financial elite, at the origin of the reproduction of the objects of decoration, blew up the request box liqueurs. This fast success entailed a multiplication of the models.
The biggest making in 19th century was called Tahan; from 1844 till 1879 his factories supplied the Court , from 1845 the Royal court, then Imperial from 1855.