Wine cooler 1775 - 1795

Curator: Here we have a wine cooler crafted between 1775 and 1795, now residing at The Met. The piece is attributed to Joseph Gegenbach, also known as Canabas. Editor: My immediate reaction is: elegant austerity. The form is so contained, almost severe despite those curvaceous legs, but the wood grain offers this warmth. Curator: The materials, metal and wood, play a crucial role, don't they? Consider the Rococo period, a time defined by aristocratic excess. Wine coolers like these served not only a functional purpose, but also reflected the wealth and refined tastes of their owners. This particular object provides insights into 18th-century European courtly life and culture. Editor: Exactly, and beyond simple opulence, I think we also glimpse shifting gender dynamics. Think about the rituals surrounding wine: who’s serving, who's being served? What are the implicit power structures at play? The deliberate curvature and detailing may reference contemporary feminized aesthetics of domestic space. Curator: The French Revolution casts a long shadow over these later Rococo pieces. Canabas was a cabinet maker, and like others serving the aristocracy, would have witnessed enormous societal upheaval. This likely would have influenced the creation, as well as its eventual perception in a world transformed by egalitarian ideals. It presents the political dimensions of the aesthetics. Editor: That shift in aesthetics, then, can tell us so much about a changed cultural landscape, about who holds the symbolic power in that landscape. This seemingly simple wine cooler offers such insight into issues of identity, class and even emerging democratic ideals. Curator: It's fascinating to consider how an object like this can become a time capsule, preserving fragments of societal attitudes and tensions long after its initial creation. Editor: Absolutely. The layers of social and cultural encoding here show just how much the aesthetic speaks in ways that are often deliberately overlooked.