Pair of Round Brass and Glass Side Tables

The small round table in brass and glass is one of the most enduringly covetable pieces from the French mid-century interior — light-footed and luminous, it achieves with minimum means an effect of maximum elegance. This pair, dating to circa 1960, exemplifies the form at its most accomplished: two circular glass tops cradled within the characteristic brass hoop of the period, supported on four slender tubular legs, each table completing its composition with a lower square glass shelf.

The brass has developed a warm golden patina over six decades, giving the frames a depth and richness that new manufacture cannot replicate. The circular hoop that defines the rim of each top is a detail of considerable refinement — it frames the glass precisely and gives the silhouette of each table a graphic clarity that reads beautifully from across a room. The lower shelf, rectangular in form, provides both visual grounding and practical utility.

Tables of this form were produced by Parisian ateliers in considerable number during the late 1950s and 1960s and were standard furnishings of the sophisticated French apartment, appearing alongside pieces by Maison Jansen, Jacques Adnet, and the leading designers of the period. Their enduring appeal rests on the same qualities that made them desirable sixty years ago: versatility, proportion, and the combination of two materials — brass and glass — that age better than almost any other.

A pair of this quality would serve equally well as lamp tables, cocktail tables, or bedside tables, and would enrich almost any interior.