Gold Washed Cast Brass Pedestal Oval Dish, Soap or Ring Dish, Domed Foot, c. 1955–1985

The Piece

A small cast brass pedestal dish, the oval soap or ring dish of a mid-century bathroom fitting, raised on a short turned stem over a domed circular foot. The dish is a shallow oval with a narrow rolled rim, cast with a fine sand-textured ground inside the rim that has kept its bright gold wash, while the flat center and the back of the dish have been polished smooth and have taken a mottled patina of old gold, brown and verdigris green where soap and water sat for years. The stem is a short baluster with a bead at the neck, set into the dish at a slight tilt so that the oval presents itself forward, and the foot is a plain polished dome with a countersunk screw at the center where the stem is fastened through and a small threaded hole at the side for a set screw, the usual fittings of a dish made to be fixed to a counter or a shelf and later freed.

The piece is solid, heavy for its size and sound, with no cracks or repairs. The gold wash is bright on the textured rim and the foot and worn to a soft patina on the face and back of the dish; the polished surfaces show fine scratches and the bead at the stem has a little rub. It is offered as found, cleaned but not re-polished, so that the patina on the dish stays.

History & Provenance

Pedestal soap dishes in gilt brass were part of the vocabulary of the American luxury bathroom from the 1950s to the 1980s, when firms such as Sherle Wagner in New York and the European makers they imported sold matching sets of soap dishes, tumbler holders, tissue boxes and tilting mirrors in gold-washed cast brass for the marble bathrooms of the period. The oval dish on a turned pedestal, counter-mounted through a hole in the foot, was the standard form, and when the bathrooms were remodeled the fittings came out and went on to second lives as ring dishes, card holders and catch-alls. This one carries the cast texture and the gold wash of that trade and the mounting fittings in its foot.

No maker's mark is present and the dish is offered as an unattributed piece of mid-century bathroom brass. The dating rests on the materials and the construction rather than style alone: the sand-cast brass with a bright gold wash, the turned baluster stem fastened through the foot with a machine screw and the threaded set screw hole are all consistent with manufacture between about 1955 and 1985.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

This is the small brass piece that goes on a nightstand for rings and a watch, on a bathroom counter for a bar of soap, on a desk for paper clips or on an entry table for keys, and looks like it was always there. The gold wash and the worn patina sit with marble, with white tile and with the brass and glass of a mid-century bar or vanity, and the pedestal lifts it off the surface so it reads as an object rather than a tray. For a shop or designer client it is the quick-selling brass small that fills a vignette and goes in a gift bag.