Brutalist Green Copper Metal Wall Art
2010s South Korean Brutalist Metalwork
Copper
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Decorative Art
Metal, Copper, Enamel
1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings
Copper, Enamel
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Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Console Tables
Wood
Vintage 1970s German Mid-Century Modern Decorative Art
Copper
Vintage 1970s Hungarian Mid-Century Modern Fireplaces and Mantels
Copper
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Tables
Wood
Mid-20th Century Italian Art Deco Carts and Bar Carts
Brass
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Bronze
Mid-20th Century Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Brass
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Laminate, Beech
20th Century French Art Nouveau Doors and Gates
Metal, Copper
Mid-20th Century Italian Art Deco Carts and Bar Carts
Brass
Late 20th Century French Mid-Century Modern Paintings
Copper, Enamel
Vintage 1970s Canadian Decorative Art
Copper
Vintage 1960s Italian Mid-Century Modern Side Tables
Lava, Metal
Mid-20th Century European Decorative Art
Copper
Vintage 1950s Italian Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Marble
Early 20th Century Indian Anglo Raj Metalwork
Silver, Brass, Copper
Materials: copper Furniture
From cupolas to cookware and fine art to filaments, copper metal has been used in so many ways since prehistoric times. Today, antique, new and vintage copper coffee tables, mirrors, lamps and other furniture and decor can bring a warm metallic flourish to interiors of any kind.
In years spanning 8,700 BC (the time of the first-known copper pendant) until roughly 3,700 BC, it may have been the only metal people knew how to manipulate.
Valuable deposits of copper were first extracted on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus around 4,000 BC — well before Europe’s actual Bronze Age (copper + tin = bronze). Tiny Cyprus is even credited with supplying all of Egypt and the Near East with copper for the production of sophisticated currency, weaponry, jewelry and decorative items.
In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, master painters such as Leonardo da Vinci, El Greco, Rembrandt and Jan Brueghel created fine works on copper. (Back then, copper-based pigments, too, were all the rage.) By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, decorative items like bas-relief plaques, trays and jewelry produced during the Art Deco, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau periods espoused copper. These became highly valuable and collectible pieces and remain so today.
Copper’s beauty, malleability, conductivity and versatility make it perhaps the most coveted nonprecious metal in existence. In interiors, polished copper begets an understated luxuriousness, and its reflectivity casts bright, golden and earthy warmth seldom realized in brass or bronze. (Just ask Tom Dixon.)
Outdoors, its most celebrated attribute — the verdigris patina it slowly develops from exposure to oxygen and other elements — isn’t the only hue it takes. Architects often refer to shades of copper as russet, ebony, plum and even chocolate brown. And Frank Lloyd Wright, Renzo Piano and Michael Graves have each used copper in their building projects.
Find antique, new and vintage copper furniture and decorative objects on 1stDibs.