Antique Bar?

I believe this piece is an antique and if so, from about what time frame? Wanted to see if anyone could chime in or maybe know some information about it. For example, What do you call a piece like this? (Would you call it a bar?) Also, what would be some ways to describe it? (The shape, wood and other details?) Thank you!

 

Welcome!
WOW!
More photo detail please like the edge of the drawers and any markings.
Pleese always use the full image button and you can edit these too.

 

Not antique since not yet 100 years old. Art deco in to MCM styling, 1930s give or take. Likely English or Continental in origin. Wood looks like figured walnut but could also be elm with a stain. Appears to be in nice condition. I have a similar cabinet that is a basket case that I haven't gotten around to restoring.

This page has a very similar one (scroll to bottom) that shows how these were fitted out.

http://www.deco-dence.com/Bars - Sideboard.htm

 

Thank you so much! I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to this stuff. Being Art deco makes sense. Thanks! We did recently refinish this piece and put knobs from Restoration Hardware on it. Posting a few more photos (including one of the original knobs).

 

Social history renders the idea of an antique bar impossible. It was the rise of the middle classes in the middle of the twentieth century that led to the home bar as such. Previously, the workers went to the pub or bar to drink, the upper classes had drinks tucked away somewhere and a servant to bring them.

When the middle classes lost their servants (possibly only a housekeeper or maid) after WWI, and certainly after WWII, there was no one to bring the drinks so the 'home bar' was invented. A later and even more extreme form was the 'wet bar' from the 60's and 70s, now considered irretrievably naff.

I'd say that item is mid 20th C in an 'antique'ish style of no particular period. I really cannot see anything 'deco' about the style.

 

That knob makes more sense but I don't hate the glass ones. Ironically, I had several of those metal knobs at one point but used them on various projects over the years.

 

This is why I said art deco in to MCM styling. The use of the matched dark veneers is typical of art deco. The amorphous shape and curves are more MCM. If this were American, would say it is definitely pre-WWII. I always have a bit of trouble dating things from across the pond since styles tended to persist longer. Were such things made in to the 50s?

 

Yup, we made them tillt the 50s at least. It would have had quite angular plastic or glass knobs, so those metal ones were probably replacements.

That would sell very well indeed in London.