Silver-plated Champagne Bucket With Fox-shaped Handles And Vine Leaf Decoration , 1870-1880

A silver-plated wine cooler featuring two handles shaped like fox heads, each holding a bunch of grapes. This motif, which evokes the fable “The Fox and the Grapes,” extends onto the removable collar, adorned with grapevine leaves and bunches of grapes in relief.

The body features an engraved design of scrolls and foliage surrounding an oval cartouche left blank. The piece rests on four clawed feet adorned with lion heads.

Made by B. Bohrmann, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, probably in the 1870s or 1880s. Maker’s mark on the underside: two mirrored capital Bs flanking a candle, within an oval set inside a hatched square.

Dimensions: total height 24 cm with the collar, 21 cm without it. Diameter of the bucket: 19 cm.
Condition: scratches and normal wear on the silver plating, including three visible strips of stripped plating on one side. ( see photos) Removable collar present. Sold without interior lining.