The commode, which is elegantly serpentined and inlaid in the French/antique manner of the 1770s, has a golden-veneered top with black-figured ribbon-banding that frames a triumphal and beribboned laurel-wreath, corresponding to those of the door-tablets enclosing sunflowered-medallions. The latter derive from the Apollo temple illustrated in Robert Woods', Ruins of Palmyra, published in 1753, while an early appearance of the Grecian-style wreath featured in the architect James Stuart's 1753 frontispiece design for an Acropolis plan, executed for his Antiquities of Athens, 1762. During the 1770s, the bold sunflowered medallion proved a popular feature for ceilings or carpets, such as that designed in 1775 for Osterley Park, Middlesex by the architect Robert Adam (d.1792) (Soane Museum, Adam MSS. vol.17, no.187). It also features as inlay on a table bearing the label of George Simson (fl. 1780-1839), cabinet-maker of St. Paul's Churchyard, who may also have been responsible for this commode (see L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, The Lady Lever Art Gallery, London, 1994, fig. 264 and The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p.817).