Vintage Slatted Wood Basket, Cast Grapevine Handle, c. 1985–2010
Viridian Eclection
The Piece
A small rectangular basket built as a slatted crate, with brass bound corners and a tall arched cast handle worked with grapes, vine leaves and butterflies.
The body is made of narrow wood slats set with even gaps between them, run vertically around all four sides and held top and bottom in a framed rail. The base is a solid panel. The whole is finished in a warm honey stain with a darker glaze worked into the joints and the edges, so the piece reads as older than it is at a glance.
Each corner, top and bottom, is wrapped in a bent sheet brass bracket fixed with domed head fasteners. Eight of them in all. They are the detail that lifts the basket above a plain crate, and they have taken a soft gold tone with handling.
The handle is the reason to own it. A slender arched bar rises from a cast mount at each side, and across the front of the mount is a cast group of grape clusters, veined vine leaves and two butterflies with their wings open. It is finished in a dark verdigris green with gold rubbed across the raised surfaces, so the leaves and the butterfly wings catch light and the recesses stay dark.
History & Provenance
This is a decorative piece and it is worth saying so directly rather than letting the stain and the brass imply an age it does not have.
The evidence is in the making. The slats are uniform milled stock, matched in width and thickness and cut square, with no variation of the kind hand riving or a period saw leaves. The base panel is clean sawn on the underside with sharp machine edges and no weathering. The darkening in the joints is a glaze laid on deliberately over the stain rather than the uneven grime a used basket collects.
The handle says the same thing more plainly. The verdigris is an applied finish, even in tone across every recess and stopped cleanly at the casting edges, with gold dry brushed across the high points. A naturally weathered casting does not oxidise that evenly and never gilds itself.
No mark, label, stencil or stamp is present anywhere on the piece. That absence gives an outer limit rather than a starting point. The grape, vine and butterfly vocabulary in an antiqued verdigris and gold finish belongs to the garden and country decorating trade of the last decades of the twentieth century and the early years of this one, and the range below is set on that basis.
Sold on its merits as a good looking object rather than as an antique, which is what it is.
Product Details
| Era | c. 1985–2010. Dated from construction and idiom. The uniform milled slats, the clean machine sawn base, the deliberately applied darkening glaze and the factory verdigris and gold finish on the cast handle are all features of late twentieth and early twenty first century decorative production. No mark or label is present, and that absence gives an outer limit only |
| Maker | Unattributed. No mark found |
| Form | Rectangular slatted basket with solid base, framed top and bottom rails, eight sheet brass corner brackets, and a tall arched cast swing handle |
| Materials | Stained wood, sheet brass, cast metal handle with applied verdigris and gold finish |
| Decoration | Cast grape clusters, veined vine leaves and two open winged butterflies across the handle mount, finished in dark verdigris green with gold rubbed over the raised surfaces |
| Marks | None |
| Dimensions | Approximately 10 in. long by 6 in. deep by 5 in. high to the rail, and 11 in. high to the top of the handle |
| Condition | Very good. Sound and square with no loose slats, splits or missing members. All eight brass brackets present and tight. Handle firm at both mounts and swings freely. Casting complete with no losses to the grapes, leaves or butterflies. Light handling wear to the finish at the rails and the handle |
Why It Belongs in Your Home
It earns its place by being useful in more ways than it looks. Small pots and herbs on a kitchen windowsill, bottles and a corkscrew on a bar cart, rolled napkins and cutlery down the middle of a table, soaps and rolled towels in a bathroom, seed packets and twine on a potting bench. The slatted sides let everything breathe and let you see what is in it.
The handle makes it carry, and carrying is what turns a container into something a person actually uses rather than something that sits.
The green and gold against honey wood and soft brass is a combination that reads warm in almost any light, and it suits a conservatory, a garden room, a farmhouse kitchen or a porch table without needing anything else to hold it up. For a shop it fills fast, photographs well and sells on sight.
Every piece is packed with professional-grade materials: multiple foam layers, double-boxing, directional and fragile handling labels. For large furniture we use custom timber crating. We photograph packing before dispatch and can provide images on request.
White-glove delivery is complimentary within 100 miles of Reno, NV. National shipping quotes provided at checkout. All shipments are photographed and documented. Damage claims must be filed with the carrier; we provide all documentation needed to support your claim.
Local pickup is available at Viridian HQ (Reno, NV) with 2–4 days notice. Contact us to arrange. Private viewings also available.
All antique and vintage items are sold as described and all sales are final. Each listing includes detailed condition notes and photographs so you can make a fully informed decision. We encourage buyers to ask questions — about condition, dimensions, finish, provenance — before purchasing.
Antiques are irreplaceable and one-of-a-kind. Carrier handling is outside our control once a piece has left our facility, and major carriers including FedEx do not insure antiques. We do everything within our power to ensure safe transit, but cannot accept liability for carrier damage. If damage occurs in transit, we will provide full documentation to support your carrier claim.
Have a question? — we're happy to provide additional photos, condition detail, or discuss the piece directly.
