Silver-Plated Woven Wire Oval Basket and Vide-Poche, France, circa 1900

This attractive oval basket is worked entirely in silver-plated metal wire in a close, even basketweave, with sides that rise gently from a flat base to create a shallow bowl of satisfying proportions. The rim is finished with a taut border of twisted wire that provides structural strength and a clean, refined termination. The overall form — broad, oval, and elegantly low-sided — is characteristic of the multipurpose table baskets produced by French silver-plating workshops during the Belle Époque, adaptable to a wide range of domestic uses.

Such pieces were indispensable fixtures of the late nineteenth-century French household, appearing in dining rooms as bread or fruit baskets, in offices as letter trays, and on side tables as vide-poches to receive keys, cards, and small personal effects. The medium of woven silver-plated wire allowed workshops to produce objects of considerable decorative charm at a price accessible to a broad bourgeois clientele, without sacrificing the handcrafted quality expected of French table arts of the period. Each strand of wire was drawn, cut, and interwoven by hand, giving the finished piece a textile-like warmth impossible to achieve by casting or pressing.

The basket's proportions — slightly wider and deeper than a letter tray, but too shallow for heavy fruit — suggest it was conceived as a general-purpose household object, as versatile in the dining room as on the writing desk. The circa 1900 date is consistent with the style of the weave, the twist of the border wire, and the quality of the silver plating throughout.

In good condition with the natural oxidation of the silver plating producing a warm antique tone characteristic of pieces of this age. The wire weave is complete and sturdy. A charming piece of Belle Époque domestic silver that retains all its original character.