Circular Glass and Chrome Vide-Poche, France, circa 1970

The vide-poche — that quintessentially French category of decorative object, designed to receive the small accumulated effects of daily life — achieves in this example a purity and material intelligence that elevates it decisively above the merely functional. Produced in France circa 1970, the piece exemplifies the best of French luxury accessories of the period: a form reduced to its essentials, executed in materials of the highest quality, and finished with a precision that rewards close examination.

The principal element is a disc of thick, slightly smoky glass — a material whose weight and translucency give it a quality simultaneously industrial and precious. Cut with clean precision to a circular form with a gently concave central depression, the glass is heavy in the hand and cool to the touch: an object that makes an immediate sensory impression as well as a visual one. The slight grey tint, far from dulling its appeal, gives it a restrained sophistication entirely appropriate to its purpose.

The glass disc sits within — and lifts free of — a polished chrome base frame whose outer edge is finished with a fine knurled detail, adding a discreet technical precision to the overall composition. This combination of crystal and chrome is one of the signature material pairings of 1970s French luxury design, and the present piece deploys it with particular authority.

Stamped by its maker. In excellent condition, the glass bright and chip-free and the chrome retaining its original lustre.