Choose from an assortment of styles, material and more with respect to the copper milk can you’re looking for at 1stDibs. Frequently made of
metal,
glass and
brass, every copper milk can was constructed with great care. Find 16 options for an antique or vintage copper milk can now, or shop our selection of 31 modern versions for a more contemporary example of this long-cherished piece. You’ve searched high and low for the perfect copper milk can — we have versions that date back to the 18th Century alongside those produced as recently as the 21st Century are available. A copper milk can is a generally popular piece of furniture, but those created in
modern,
mid-century modern and
industrial styles are sought with frequency. You’ll likely find more than one copper milk can that is appealing in its simplicity, but
Cassina,
Charlotte Perriand and
TJ Volonis produced versions that are worth a look.
A copper milk can can differ in price owing to various characteristics — the average selling price 1stDibs is $1,548, while the lowest priced sells for $199 and the highest can go for as much as $105,074.
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.