Orchestra 3 Copper Square

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.

Stools are versatile and a necessary addition to any living room, kitchen area or elsewhere in your home. A sofa or reliable lounge chair might nab all the credit, comfort-wise, but don’t discount the roles that good antique, new and vintage stools can play.

“Stools are jewels and statements in a space, and they can also be investment pieces,” says New York City designer Amy Lau, who adds that these seats provide an excellent choice for setting an interior’s general tone. 

Stools, which are among the oldest forms of wooden furnishings, may also serve as decorative pieces, even if we’re talking about a stool that is far less sculptural than the gracefully curving molded plywood shells that make up Sōri Yanagi’s provocative Butterfly stool. 

Fawn Galli, a New York interior designer, uses her stools in the same way you would use a throw pillow. “I normally buy several styles and move them around the home where needed,” she says.

Stools are smaller pieces of seating as compared to armchairs or dining chairs and can add depth as well as functionality to a space that you’ve set aside for entertaining. For a splash of color, consider the Stool 60, a pioneering work of bentwood by Finnish architect and furniture maker Alvar Aalto. It’s manufactured by Artek and comes in a variety of colored seats and finishes.

Barstools that date back to the 1970s are now more ubiquitous in kitchens. Vintage barstools have seen renewed interest, be they a meld of chrome and leather or transparent plastic, such as the Lucite and stainless-steel counter stool variety from Indiana-born furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones, who is renowned for his acrylic works. A cluster of barstools — perhaps a set of four brushed-aluminum counter stools by Emeco or Tubby Tube stools by Faye Toogood — can encourage merriment in the kitchen. If you’ve got the room for family and friends to congregate and enjoy cocktails where the cooking is done, consider matching your stools with a tall table.

Whether you need counter stools, drafting stools or another kind, explore an extensive range of antique, new and vintage stools on 1stDibs.