Jacques Adnet & Christofle — Silver-Plated and Chinese Lacquer Wine Bottle Holder, Circa 1950

This wine bottle holder is one of the most recognisable objects of twentieth-century French applied design. Conceived by Jacques Adnet in his capacity as artistic director of the Compagnie des Arts Français and executed by Christofle — the great Parisian silver house founded in 1830 — the piece exemplifies the synthesis of luxury craftsmanship and modernist design thinking for which Adnet is celebrated. The structure is an open A-frame cradle of chrome-plated wire elements, crossed and braced in a pattern of great geometric elegance, spreading at the base into small feet that anchor the composition on any flat surface. The eye travels upward through the lattice of rods to the single dominant horizontal element: a thick cylindrical bar sheathed in lustrous Chinese lacquer, its jet-black surface contrasting with the brilliance of the chrome.

Jacques Adnet (1900–1984) was one of the defining figures of French decorative arts in the mid-twentieth century. Trained at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, he succeeded Maurice Dufrêne at the Compagnie des Arts Français in 1928 and spent the following decades creating a vocabulary of interiors and objects characterised by the combination of chrome, leather, and exotic materials with a rigorously geometric formal language. His bottle holders, decanters, and serving accessories for Christofle — produced from the late 1940s through the 1950s — are among the most sought-after pieces in the canon of post-war French design.

Christofle, founded in Paris in 1830, transformed the luxury table goods market in the nineteenth century through its pioneering use of electroplating. By the mid-twentieth century the house had established a consistent programme of design collaborations — with Gio Ponti, Lino Sabattini, and Jacques Adnet among others — that positioned Christofle at the forefront of the international luxury design market. This piece carries a double mark: stamped Christofle France and Laque de Chine, it bears both the imprimatur of the maison and a notation of the specific material that defines the design.

The chrome-plated wire elements are bright and free from corrosion; the joints are clean and structurally sound. The Chinese lacquer crossbar retains its deep, glassy finish with only the light surface variation of age. A documented and fully marked example of Adnet's masterful domestication of modernism — functional as a serving cradle and of significant interest as a collectible piece of post-war French design.