This beautifully ornamented barrel was used to transport Mercier champagne to the Paris 1889 Exhibition.
Note taken from the Mercier website:
If building a 20 ton cask wasn’t ambitious enough, getting it to Paris required wheels built by a railway company, 24 oxen to pull it (chaperoned by 18 horses), the destruction of houses and forests in its way and 8 days and nights to get it there! For anyone who knows their history, Mercier’s feat, while certainly impressive, was unfortunately overshadowed ‘slightly’ by the other exhibit at the Expo – the Eiffel Tower… however, as it was seen by tens of thousands of people, you could say it was inspired marketing!