Antique Dog Tray

Antique Poodle Card Tray

France | Circa 1900

A rectangular tray with softly canted sides, the whole floor worked in low relief to imitate weathered planking, grain and knots and all, with a single open flower laid across it on a leafy stem as though someone had set it down there and walked away. Standing at one end, cast separately and mounted to the rim, is a poodle in the lion clip: shaggy mane, feathered forelegs, bare paws, plumed tail carried high. It is gilded, and rubbed brightest along the mane and the muzzle, which is exactly where a hundred years of hands would have found it.

The tray itself has settled to a soft grey, so the dog reads warm against it. The modelling of the coat is properly done, curl by curl, and the legs are separately articulated rather than lumped into the body, which is the difference between a cast worth looking at and one that is merely a shape.

Trays of this form are called card trays, or vide-poches. They lived in an entrance hall and took whatever came out of a pocket at the end of the day. This one will do the same job now, at exactly the right size for keys, reading glasses, or the small drift of things that otherwise collects on a kitchen counter.

The naturalism is the tell for the date. Faux-bois worked convincingly enough to fool the eye at arm's length, a flower drawn from life rather than from a pattern book, and an animal modelled from observation rather than styled into an ornament, all belong to the years around 1900, when European metalwork went briefly and completely mad for nature.

7.5 x 6.25 inches.

Details

• Object: Card tray or vide-poche with mounted poodle figure
• Material: Pewter tray with gilt bronze poodle
• Decoration: Faux-bois ground with a single flower in low relief
• Origin: France. Date: Circa 1900
• Size: 7.5 x 6.25 inches
• Condition: Good antique condition, with rubbing to the gilding on the figure and patina consistent with age, and one corner of the tray bent up slightly