Images(8)

Cellaret

Date1755-1775

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Williamsburg (probably)

MediumBlack walnut and yellow pine

DimensionsOH: 37 1/2" OW: 20 1/4" OD: 18 1/2"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1995-92,1A&B

DescriptionAppearance: Bottle case on stand, in two parts; the upper section with hinged rectangular lid with molded edge opening to a well fitted with dividers and enclosing twelve tapered green glass bottles (1995-92,2-13); the lower section with a molded frieze fitted with a slider and supported on four Marlborough legs.

Construction: The two-board top on the lid is glued into rabbets on the lid rails and further secured on the inside with large chamfered glue blocks. The lid rails are blind-miter dovetailed and fitted with nailed-on cock beading. The case sides, back, and front are similarly blind-miter dovetailed and cock beaded. The bottom board is glued and nailed into rabbets. The case rests within the base moldings nailed to the freestanding frame. Inside, the dividers are saddle-joined to one another and set into dadoes on the sides, front, and back. On the frame, the rails are tenoned into the legs and secured with pins. The bladed slider has dowel stops and is supported between runners and a kicker nailed to the case sides. An additional kicker is mounted to the rear of the case, as are small, nailed-on slider stops.

Materials: Black walnut lid, case sides, case front, case back, glue blocks, moldings, slider, slider blade, frame rails, legs, and pins; yellow pine kickers, runners, bottom board, and dividers.
Label TextBy the third quarter of the eighteenth century, growing numbers of southern dining rooms contained a specialized furniture form variously termed a "gin case," "brandy case," "case with bottles," or "bottle case." With a boxlike upper section supported on a simple frame, the bottle case essentially functioned as a portable wine cellar, hence the British name "Temporary cellar" and the slightly later "cellaret." The portable upper case, sometimes fitted with carrying handles, was transported to the cellar where the bottles were refilled from the barrels stored there.

Freestanding bottle cases were owned far more commonly in the South than in the North. The consumption of alcohol was particularly prevalent in the South, where beverages like cider, small beer, and wine were regarded as appropriate and healthy ways to cope with the intense heat and humidity. Wine and stronger liquors also played an important role in the entertainment of guests, a major component of southern gentry culture by the mid-eighteenth century.

This bottle case is one of only three known pre-Revolutionary examples from Tidewater Virginia. According to oral tradition, it was first owned by planter William Byrd III (1728-1777), who maintained fashionable residences at Westover plantation on the James River and in nearby Williamsburg. Stylistically, the case mirrors the well-executed, neat-and-plain furniture widely produced in the best Tidewater cabinet shops during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The complex mitered dovetailing of the lid and case are fully concealed, producing a smooth and seamless surface, and the lid is mounted on custom-made, single-screw, butt hinges. Unlike most later examples, the Byrd family case is finished on all four sides so that it can be drawn up to the table or used in the middle of a room. This approach is reminiscent of eastern Virginia writing, dressing, and sideboard tables, many of which had finished backs. More typical of southern bottle cases is the pull-out board in the stand. Known as a slider in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, this feature provided a work surface for preparing beverages and refilling the case.

Most bottle cases and sideboard cellaret drawers had square glass bottles arranged within a grid of interior dividers. Usually executed in an unfinished secondary wood, the dividers were probably custom made to fit specific sets of bottles since the latter were mold blown in different sizes. In 1784, Annapolis cabinetmaker John Shaw wrote to patron William Smallwood, reporting that "your Sideboard table is done all but the top . . . I Shall be glad [if] you would Send to the glass man about the bottles as I Expect to finish the table very Soon." The bottles rarely survive with their cases, but the green glass examples in the Byrd family case appear to date from the eighteenth century, and a few may be original to the piece.

InscribedNone
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceAccording to oral tradition, the case was originally owned by William Byrd III of Williamsburg and Westover plantation in Charles City Co., Va. It descended through the Byrd family. In 1934, Otway Byrd of Upper Brandon, Va., gave the case as a wedding present to Byrd descendant Hugh North Page and Anne Dilly (later Mrs. V. L. Gormer). In 1965, Anne Dilly Page Gormer sold the case to antiques dealer, C. L. Montgomery of Hendersonville, N. C., who sold it to another Byrd descendent in Baltimore, Md. The case was then inherited by Tom Byrd, from whose estate it was acquired by antiques dealer Jim Williams of Savannah, Ga., in 1984. Williams sold it to dealer Robert E. Crawford of Crozier, Va. Crawford sold the case to Dr. and Mrs. Henry P. Deyerle of Harrisonburg, Va., and CWF acquired it at the sale of Dr. Deyerle's estate.

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