From the end of the 18th century, the liquor cellar became an integral part of French society and travel, allowing notables to spend long periods in carriages.
Since then, perhaps no other luxury item has been as successful in the aristocratic circles of France as these artfully and luxuriously crafted liquor cabinets.
Today, at the famous DROUOT auctions in Paris, these masterpieces of ingenuity and jewelry-making by cabinetmakers are still at the top of the auctions, attracting antique lovers not only for their utilitarian function, but also for their exceptional decoration and the highest level of design.
"Get rich!" – proclaimed in 1840 by François Guizot, Prime Minister of France under Louis Philippe, and the nascent bourgeoisie responded enthusiastically to this call by surrounding themselves with luxury and prestige.
The entire economic and social environment of the time was conducive to the development of such exquisite interiors as liquor cellars. It is believed that none other than George Sand introduced the fashion for liquor cellars as a source of pride for the gentry and nobles.
Liquor cabinets began to spread actively during the First Empire (1804-1815), and until the Restoration period (1814-1830), the forms of the chests were strict and laconic, the severe appearance was decorated with only small inserts according to the marquetry technique.
During this period, preference was mainly given to the quality of production, rather than artistic research, and these are the liquor cabinets sold in the shops of the Palais Royal garden.
But later, a number of liquor cabinet manufacturers decided not to rest on their laurels. They began to decorate liquor cabinets in search of true artistic perfection.
Emphasis was placed on the crystal contents of the chests: they were equipped with eight, twelve, sixteen, and even thirty-two square-section glasses with gilding and, generally, two or four decanters. The renowned French crystal manufacturers Creusot, Saint-Louis, de Clichy, Sèvres, Pantin, and Baccarat, which supplied the liquor cabinets, competed in the refinement and infinite variety of their crystal. Cut or etched, brushed, cut, twisted, or gilded.
Around 1835-1840 came the fashion for Bohemian crystal, and then for colored crystal, new colors were also introduced.
The July Monarchy of 1830-1848 and the rise of the upper middle class led to an emphasis on status symbols. Thus, in aristocratic families, it became a tradition to present liquor cabinets as wedding gifts, as a testament to the family's high status.
It is not surprising that demand for luxury goods, including liquor cabinets, increased sharply among the financial and aristocratic elite of the time. This increased demand led to a rise in supply and the emergence of new models with even more sophisticated designs.
The period of flourishing for this production of luxury goods begins: liquor cabinets begin to be produced in different shapes – oval, round, polylobed, octagonal…
At the same time, the abolition of shop rules allowed entrepreneurs and cabinetmakers to create their own small workshops and produce true masterpieces – small pieces of furniture and liquor cabinets of very high quality.
Thus, liquor cellars have gradually found their unique characteristics as attributes of the French lifestyle, which have no analogues in other countries.
Existing in other European countries, similar items – trays, cases or chests for decanters for alcoholic beverages, even in mahogany, which were provided on board ships for naval officers – did not constitute a particular form of small furniture, but rather exquisite works of art.
It was only in France that these objects of aristocratic life were created as true products of art and craftsmanship.
Thus, in all European languages – Dutch, German, Spanish, English – these objects bear a French name – “liqueur cellars”.
At the height of liquor cabinet production, a large number of variations were created. Among the rarest varieties were musical, mechanical, rotating, papier-mâché, opal glass, and crystal cabinets with gilded bronze frames.
The finest wine cellars were made of rare woods (rosewood or palisander, thuya or maple, redwood). The best masters of red wood used bronze details with rich gilt engravings or painted porcelain insets to decorate the cellars and, with particular delicacy, revealed the astonishing decorative value of precious wood species.
They used a very simple decor, which only served to highlight the beautiful structure and the naturalness of the wood. During the Second Empire (1852-1870), cabinetmaking workshops underwent profound technical transformations which allowed for the active use of marquetry, brass, mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell or ivory techniques for the creation of wine cellars, as well as the classic and very popular liquor cabinet of the Napoleon III era in blackened wood.
At the same time, the mechanization of production, which had begun, increased output and made the prestigious liquor cabinet more accessible. To meet the growing demand, the product had to be developed not by a single master craftsman, but by a hundred people. Previously, the master cabinetmaker would create a liquor cabinet box by hand, alone. Today, he heads a company of around one hundred workers who work as draftsmen, carpenters, cabinetmakers, sculptors, lacquerers, bronze casters, goldsmiths, and installers.
However, according to research by the Hélène d'Helmersen Gallery, the production of liquor cabinets has been declining since the end of the Second Empire. Indeed, despite the complexity of the production and decoration processes, hundreds of hours of work were required to achieve impeccable artistic quality in these pieces. Even with the mechanization of certain processes, their production remained extremely laborious and expensive, and liquor cabinets gradually began to disappear, becoming a true rarity.
Thus, in 1900, a little over a century after the invention of liquor cabinets, the exceptionally labor-intensive manufacturing process led to their eventual discontinuation and their disappearance from use. It wasn't until the 1920s and 1930s that the Baccarat crystal house produced a simplified version of the liquor cabinet for pleasure craft, in the form of a portable case with three decanters and glasses. However, the aesthetics and artistic virtuosity of the previous century's creation were already unattainable.
This article is based on publications from the DROUOT auction house in Paris: Dimitri Joannidès – Gazette No. 41 of November 27, 2009
