Italian Drinks Trolley: Mid-Century, c.1960s

Italy made an art of the cocktail hour at home. The aperitivo - that interval between the workday and dinner, an hour given over to drinks and conversation in the salotto - became, in the postwar decades, a national ritual. Furniture rose to meet it. The drinks trolley, in particular, became one of the small instruments of Italian hospitality: a piece of theatre on wheels, designed to be rolled out at the right moment, to carry crystal and ice and the bottles whose labels were as much a part of the room as the host. Cesare Lacca drew the most famous versions for Cassina in the 1950s - bentwood frames in dark-lacquered hardwood, brass hardware, the legs angled like a dancer's stance. Ico Parisi and Paolo Buffa designed their own. The form was taken up across Italian workshops, and the trolleys that come down to us from this period share a recognisable language: asymmetric wooden frames, brass-tipped handles, brass casters, glass tiers held in slim wooden frames. The trolley did not need to be the loudest object in the room. It needed to arrive at the right time.

This one is from that tradition. A two-tier trolley in dark-lacquered wood with brass hardware and casters, the frame angled in an asymmetric Z that gives the silhouette its forward motion; clear glass set into slim wooden frames on both tiers; X-stretchers below each tier holding the form rigid. The brass has the warm patina of decades of handling.

Light wear consistent with age. Patina to the brass hardware.

Dimensions: H 0.68m × W 0.92m × D 0.44m