Neoclassical Round Brass Drinks Trolley with Removable Trays, Maison Baguès, Circa 1940

This elegant drinks trolley presents a circular structure in polished brass of neoclassical inspiration, its two removable round trays arranged on a wheeled frame that allows the whole to be moved with ease through the rooms of a grand interior. The structure is composed of refined brass metalwork — tapered legs, ringed stretchers, and gallery rails — worked with the precision characteristic of the finest French decorative production of the 1940s. The removable trays, held securely within their gallery rails, can be lifted free from the frame for use as serving trays, a detail of practical ingenuity that reflects the French art de vivre at its most accomplished.

This drinks trolley is attributed to Maison Baguès, the celebrated Parisian atelier of decorative bronze founded in 1840 on the Île Saint-Louis. The house was the pre-eminent supplier of luxury brass and bronze furniture and objects to the great Parisian decorators of the twentieth century, whose commissions ranged from chandeliers and wall sconces to tables, consoles, and — as this piece demonstrates — the most refined objects for the service and ceremony of domestic entertaining. The drinks trolley reached its apogee in France during the interwar period and the 1940s, when the rituals of the cocktail hour and salon entertaining gave rise to an extraordinary range of elegant serving furniture. A Baguès trolley would have graced the most distinguished drawing rooms in Paris, serving as both a functional object and a declaration of taste.

This drinks trolley would bring an incomparable note of French golden-age elegance to any interior in which the arts of hospitality are practised. The circular brass structure, fitted with its removable trays, is as practical as it is beautiful — equally suited to the service of cocktails before dinner, the presentation of desserts, or the display of a collection of precious objects. A piece from one of the most distinguished names in French decorative metalwork, this trolley represents the art de vivre expressed in its most refined material form.