What is the difference between a wine cooler and a cellarette?

In principle a cooler is open and filled with ice and water, while a cellarette is lidded and divided inside to hold bottles upright. Ten titles say open, and a few use the older word cistern. In practice the archive treats the two as near-interchangeable. "Cellarette" or "cellaret" appears in 109 of 494 titles, often on pieces a different dealer would have called a wine cooler.

Which wood are most wine coolers made from?

Mahogany, and by a long way. It is named in 335 of 494 titles, roughly two thirds, and no other timber reaches one in twenty. The rest spread thin: oak, walnut, satinwood, rosewood, elm, padouk and teak all turn up, usually on pieces where the timber is the point.

How old are these pieces likely to be?

The dated field spans 1750 to 1930, with 129 listings carrying a clean year. The rest use period labels, led by 19th Century, Georgian, 18th Century and Regency. Georgian and 19th Century each cover about a hundred years, so on their own they place a piece only broadly. Titles reading c.1820 or circa 1790 are the ones being specific. The 1920s and 1930s end is revival work in the Regency and George II taste.

Why are jardinieres listed as wine coolers?

Jardiniere appears in thirty-two titles and planter in nineteen, and many titles pair the two names. Coolers with their liners removed took plants well, and the two descriptions have travelled together ever since. The same overlap brings in coopered buckets and brass and copper ice buckets under the same heading.

Are pairs of wine coolers common?

No. Eight titles in 494 describe a pair. Where they do appear, pairs of George III brass-bound coolers and inlaid cellarettes sit near the top of the range.

Were wine coolers made outside England?

Mostly not, though other origins are real. Dutch pieces account for twelve titles and French for eight, with single Irish, Danish, Anglo-Indian, Indian padouk and Anglo-Dutch entries. The Dutch presence is largely coopered: teestoof and tea-stove buckets, and one miniature mahogany jardiniere. About fifty-one wine coolers are listed a year on Sellingantiques, offered by 143 different dealers over the archive.

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Antique Wine Coolers

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A wine cooler is a lidded or open wooden vessel, usually mahogany and often metal-lined, made to hold bottles in iced water beside the dining table or to store them under the sideboard.