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A cellarette, also known as a cellaret, is a tiny furniture cabinet that is used to store bottles of alcoholic drinks such as wine or whiskey. It comes in a variety of sizes, forms, and designs. They generally have some form of protection, such as a lock, to keep the contents safe. As early as the fourteenth century, wooden containers for alcoholic beverages emerged throughout Europe. They debuted in America in the early eighteenth century and were popular far into the twentieth. They were generally made of attractive wood and had unique patterns to keep them hidden from the casual observer. They were discovered in bars, taverns, and affluent people’s houses.

Freestanding alcoholic beverage cabinets made of wood box containers initially developed in Europe in the fourteenth century to store and safeguard alcoholic beverages in public establishments. Cellarettes, a type of European liquor cabinet, originally arrived in colonial America in the eighteenth century. Because the bottles were hidden and the cabinet could be locked, the major function of a liquor cabinet or cellarette was to keep wine and whiskey safe from theft.

Army officers’ cellarettes typically came with crystal decanters, shot glasses, pitchers, funnels, and drinking goblets throughout the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War. The cellarette designs of the eighteenth century were still in use in the twentieth century. Cellarettes were popular at taverns and bars during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, as well as in certain affluent households.

During Prohibition in the United States, many trompe-l’oeil cellarettes were created to hide illegal alcoholic drinks. The three-dimensional trompe-l’il artwork on these cellarettes gave the impression that they were a regular table, bookshelf, or other item of furniture to the casual spectator.

Cellarettes were custom-made wooden boxes used to transport and store limited quantities of bottled alcoholic drinks in England and America. They were often built of good ornamental woods such as mahogany, rosewood, or walnut, and came in a variety of forms and sizes. Cellarettes were traditionally used as dining room furnishings. Small movable pieces of furniture with handles that could be moved from room to room in a house were known as cellarettes. Another form was a permanent piece of furniture with a sliding shelf for glasses and a drawer for serving utensils that was constructed on a stand.

They might be freestanding or integrated into a dining room buffet serving sideboard with a “pedestal end.” A cellarette usually featured a hinged door or a hinged top cover. Often, a lock was included to keep the contents safe from robbers. Metal was used to line the insides of several cellarettes. This let wine or food to be iced, which kept them colder for longer than they would have been at room temperature. Melted ice water could not permeate into the wood because of the metal. As a prestige symbol, men of affluence possessed as many as three cellarettes at a time, which did not necessarily indicate that they were strong drinkers.

Cellarettes were usually basic in design in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, with a Neoclassical appearance. As Neoclassicism gave place to the more showy Empire style, cellarettes grew heavier and more elaborate, with Roman and Grecian elements dominating. Sarcophagi in the shape of lions’ heads and animal-paw feet were created in some cases. Due to the invention of the refrigerator, the use of the cellarette fell out of favor in the twentieth century.

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