Copper Bread Box
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Brass, Copper
Early 20th Century Indian Agra Decorative Boxes
Metal, Copper
Early 20th Century Indian Agra Decorative Boxes
Metal, Copper
Antique Late 18th Century Decorative Boxes
Copper
Early 20th Century European Renaissance Revival Religious Items
Copper
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Early 20th Century Indian Anglo-Indian Decorative Boxes
Brass, Copper, Tin
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Copper
Antique 17th Century German Jacobean Decorative Boxes
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Fruitwood
Antique Mid-19th Century Indian Decorative Boxes
Bronze, Copper
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Copper
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Copper
Antique Late 19th Century Indian Anglo-Indian Decorative Boxes
Bone, Padouk, Sandalwood
Mid-20th Century Indian Agra Decorative Boxes
Brass
Early 20th Century American Eastlake Toys and Dolls
Fruitwood, Paint
Antique Late 19th Century Indian Agra Decorative Boxes
Brass, Copper
Antique 1870s Decorative Boxes
Brass, Copper
Antique 18th Century French Louis XV Shelves and Wall Cabinets
Metal
Recent Sales
Antique 19th Century Decorative Boxes
Copper
Antique Late 19th Century French Decorative Boxes
Porcelain, Maple
Antique Early 1900s French Country Knife Boxes
Copper, Iron
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.
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