2 Art Deco Mirrored Trays · Streamline Moderne · 1930s

Two mirror trays from the early 1930s in the typical design language of Streamline Moderne. Both feature a circumferential frame of chrome-plated metal with a triple longitudinal groove — a serial stripe motif that became part of the leading vocabulary of European arts and crafts after 1928. Inside is a clear, flat mirror; at the four corners, a cylindrical turned wooden handle, capped by round metal caps with a concentric bull's-eye pattern.

The larger tray measures 30.5 × 28 × 3.5 cm and is almost square; the wooden handles are made of dark, almost ebony-colored tropical wood, probably rosewood or ebonized fine wood. The narrower second tray measures 31 × 21.5 × 3.2 cm in a transverse rectangular dressing table format and features reddish-brown wooden handles in a walnut or mahogany tone.

Both pieces share the same frame type and end cap construction and are highly likely to come from the same model family — offered in different sizes and wood finishes, as was common in German, Austrian, and French arts and crafts workshops of the interwar period. Neither tray bears a maker's mark; the attribution remains limited to the stylistic circle and corresponds to the vocabulary of houses such as WMF, BMF, Argentor, or comparable South German-Austrian manufacturers of this phase.

Together, the two trays form a functional boudoir ensemble — the larger one for perfume bottles and jewelry boxes, the narrower one for brush sets and mirrors. The condition is age-appropriate: The mirror surface of the larger tray shows slight foxing at the edge, both frames bear the typical oxidation patina in the grooves, and the wooden handles show developed signs of use. Structurally, both pieces are fully intact.