These remarkable decanter wagons are designed in the early 19th century 'antique' or 'Roman' manner, recalling ancient display nefs. The festive Silenus abandons the rudders of a Roman galley while a Bacchic faun, standing with a hoof on its wolf-headed bowsprit ferries with an oar. The drunken wine god reposes like a River God at the fruit-festooned stern with his drinking pot held above his head. His lion pelt is draped over vines and his pillow is provided by a goat-skin wine bottle. The stern is further embellished with a Bacchic trophy comprising theatric masks and a vine wreathed krater vase. The pose of Silenus may owe some of its inspiration to 16th century Florentine goldsmith's work such as the inebriated hero Hercules, sold Sotheby's, 9 December 1993, lot 106. The handled wine-pot or patera also featured on the richly sculpted bacchic cistern executed in 1828 for George IV, (see Catalogue of the Jewel House, Tower of London, 1993, no. )

The decanter wagon became most fashionable in the Regency period, at a time when fashionable banqueting-tables feature a mirrored centrepiece, thus providing an appropriate 'watery' base for displaying such a boat. Richly sculpted silver of the George IV period also witness the introduction of extraordinary naturalism of pieces in the French picturesque style such as the massive silver gilt cistern, mentioned above, which weighed approximatley a quarter of a ton, and is now displayed in the new Jewel House at the Tower of London. The decanter trolleys, in common with the cistern, were no doubt modelled by Rundell Bridge and Rundell's distinguished designer Edward Hodges Bailey (d.1867)