Lot Essay
This extraordinary commode is one of the most richly mounted pieces of furniture in the chinoiserie taste to survive from the eighteenth century. Although the details of its original commission remain a mystery, its visual impact is immediate. A monumental gilt-bronze dragon at each corner frames panels exotically marbled with natural tortoiseshell, which mirror the golden-flecked Portor marble top. The drawers are mounted in turn with an oriental canopied pavilion, a dragon writhing in foliage and a 'pagode', or oriental deity, seated beneath a canopy flanked by worshipping attendants. Its imposing form derives from the Louis XIV 'commode de forme tombeau' and relates to contemporary lacquered commodes which were used to embellish palatial bedroom apartments, often combined with garnitures of ormolu-mounted oriental porcelain.
The vogue for chinoiserie dates back to the seventeenth century when European travellers to the Orient brought back tales of the exotic sights they had seen. The Cummings commode owes its creation to romantic interpretations of the East by artists and designers at the court of Louis XV, such as Antoine Watteau and Nicolas Pineau. They were inspired by accounts of audiences granted by the Chinese Emperor to European ambassadors and events such as the state visits of the Emperor of Siam to the court of Louis XIV in 1684 and 1686. One such illustrated account was published by a Dutchman, Johan Nieuhof, in 1669, following an ambassadorial visit to the 'Great Tartar Chan' in 1665. Nieuhof's engravings proved immensely influential by providing a comprehensive range of alluring images of China. Europe's particular fascination with oriental idols lies behind the central image of the 'pagode' in the apron of the Cummings commode. The Treatise on Japanning published in England in 1668 by Messrs Stalker and Parker, which provided a series of images appropriate as subjects for artists imitating oriental lacquer, included a section on 'Pagod worship in the Indies' with depictions of deities seated beneath a canopy before prostrate subjects. Similar images appear in an engraving circa 1695 after Jean Bérain (illustrated in H. Honour, Chinoiserie, 1961, p. 61, fig. 2), which was interpreted in a more playful picturesque vein in a drawing of a 'Divinité Chinoise' after Antoine Watteau, op.cit., fig. 35. The 'pagode' of the Cummings commode perhaps owes its direct inspiration to a 1728 engraving depicting the worship of a fabulous deity 'Matzou' by the artist Bernard Picart in his Dissertation sur les Cérémonies Réligieuses des Peuples de la Chine et du Japon, 1726-1729. Another possible source is an engraving by Arnoldus Montanus, of L'Audience de l'Empereur de Chine, from In Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen, printed in Amsterdam in 1669 (illustrated in A. Gruber ed., L'Art Décoratif en Europe, Classique et Baroque, 1992, p. 302). It is clearly inspired by Nieuhof's account and incorporates the key elements of the commode- the canopied pavilion above the seated Emperor and worshipping attendants flanked by dragons.
The Cummings commode is the most important example of a small group of commodes and bureaux plats executed in the 1730's, sharing similar forms and many identical chinoiserie mounts. Unfortunately, no signed examples exist and very little documentation has survived regarding the original commissions of these distinctive pieces. Surveys by Alexandre Pradère in Les Ébénistes Français (1989, pp. 124-127) and in L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art (March 1992, pp. 22-44), resulted in the term 'Maître aux Pagodes' for this mysterious ébéniste. Pradère records the following pieces with similar mounts:
-A commode sold Ader, Paris, 14 April 1970, lot 109
-A commode in a private collection, Brussels
-A commode sold from the collection of Mme Lelong, Paris, 11 May 1903, lot 917
-A commode sold Drouot Arcole, Paris, 6 April 1990, lot 192, and now on the Paris art market
-A commode in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, formerly in the Dournovo collection, St. Petersburg
-A commode from the collection of Mrs. Henry Walters and subsequently Colonel and Mrs. Edgar Garbisch, sold Sotheby's New York, 17 May 1980, lot 330 and again 4 May 1985, lot 306, acquired by Roberto Polo, sold Sotheby's New York, 3 November 1989, lot 99
-A commode from the collection of Baron Guy de Rothschild, sold Sotheby's London, 24 November 1972, lot 35 and again 21 July 1977, lot 88
-A commode at Schloss Wilhemstal, Cassel
The Cummings commode distinguishes itself as the finest of these through its rich use of tortoiseshell (all the other commodes cited except possibly for the Lelong commode employ kingwood parquetry veneers) and the unparalleled quality and range of the gilt bronze mounts.
One intriguing attribution for this group of furniture would be to the sons of the celebrated ébéniste, Andre-Charles Boulle, most especially Andre-Charles II. Mounts on pieces by the Maître aux Pagodes are similar to Boulle workshop examples and it would have been natural for the Boulle fils to continue using their father's mounts. An armoire adorned with 'pagodes' and identified as the work of 'un fils du celèbre Boulle', is noted in the Gaignat sale of 1769. The use of tortoiseshell was also a hallmark of the Boulle workshop. It is also interesting to note that a commode appears in the 1765 sale of stock of the renowned ébéniste Charles Cressent with 'deux pagodes sur les tiroirs'.
The only piece by the Maître aux Pagodes documented in the eighteenth century is a bureau plat from Schloss Pforten (illustrated in H. Huth, 'Two French Writing Tables', Burlington Magazine, 1938, LXXII, pp. 76-81). This was acquired by Count Brühl through his agent M. Leleux in Paris in 1749. German rulers, such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Augustus the Strong of Saxony, were particularly passionate about chinoiserie. Augustus the Strong, who had formed the Meissen factory to imitate Chinese porcelain, built a number of palaces around Dresden lavishly decorated in the chinoiserie taste. He also ordered a famous silver and enamelled centerpiece from Johann Melchior Dirglinger 1701-1708, depicting the Great Moghul Aurangzeb seated beneath a canopied pavilion with dragons (see A. Gruber, op.cit., p.303). Brühl was Prime Minister to Augustus III, son of Augustus the Strong, and furnished many of the royal Saxon palaces such as Schloss Moritzburg with lavishly mounted furniture from ébénistes such as Jean-Pierre Latz and Bernard II Van Risen Burgh. It is conceivable that the Cummings commode may have been commissioned for a distinguished German patron such as Brühl.
The commode's recent history is equally intriguing. It first emerges in the celebrated collection of Lionel de Rothschild at Exbury in the south of England, who had purchased this estate following the sale of the palatial residence of his uncle Alfred de Rothschild at Halton. The commode was sold, possibly following Lionel's death in 1942, to the Earl of Wilton. Its first public appearance took place when Lord Wilton lent it to the famous exhibition of Regency furniture at Brighton Pavilion in 1948. Its presence in George IV's extraordinary dragon-filled banqueting hall must have been dazzling. It was sold by Lord Wilton at auction in London in 1950 and was subsequently acquired by Mme. Sacha Guitry, wife of the French matinée idol (information kindly supplied by Mr. Theodore Dell), from whose collection it was purchased by Joanne Cummings and her then husband Nathan for their apartment in the Waldorf Towers, New York
The vogue for chinoiserie dates back to the seventeenth century when European travellers to the Orient brought back tales of the exotic sights they had seen. The Cummings commode owes its creation to romantic interpretations of the East by artists and designers at the court of Louis XV, such as Antoine Watteau and Nicolas Pineau. They were inspired by accounts of audiences granted by the Chinese Emperor to European ambassadors and events such as the state visits of the Emperor of Siam to the court of Louis XIV in 1684 and 1686. One such illustrated account was published by a Dutchman, Johan Nieuhof, in 1669, following an ambassadorial visit to the 'Great Tartar Chan' in 1665. Nieuhof's engravings proved immensely influential by providing a comprehensive range of alluring images of China. Europe's particular fascination with oriental idols lies behind the central image of the 'pagode' in the apron of the Cummings commode. The Treatise on Japanning published in England in 1668 by Messrs Stalker and Parker, which provided a series of images appropriate as subjects for artists imitating oriental lacquer, included a section on 'Pagod worship in the Indies' with depictions of deities seated beneath a canopy before prostrate subjects. Similar images appear in an engraving circa 1695 after Jean Bérain (illustrated in H. Honour, Chinoiserie, 1961, p. 61, fig. 2), which was interpreted in a more playful picturesque vein in a drawing of a 'Divinité Chinoise' after Antoine Watteau, op.cit., fig. 35. The 'pagode' of the Cummings commode perhaps owes its direct inspiration to a 1728 engraving depicting the worship of a fabulous deity 'Matzou' by the artist Bernard Picart in his Dissertation sur les Cérémonies Réligieuses des Peuples de la Chine et du Japon, 1726-1729. Another possible source is an engraving by Arnoldus Montanus, of L'Audience de l'Empereur de Chine, from In Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen, printed in Amsterdam in 1669 (illustrated in A. Gruber ed., L'Art Décoratif en Europe, Classique et Baroque, 1992, p. 302). It is clearly inspired by Nieuhof's account and incorporates the key elements of the commode- the canopied pavilion above the seated Emperor and worshipping attendants flanked by dragons.
The Cummings commode is the most important example of a small group of commodes and bureaux plats executed in the 1730's, sharing similar forms and many identical chinoiserie mounts. Unfortunately, no signed examples exist and very little documentation has survived regarding the original commissions of these distinctive pieces. Surveys by Alexandre Pradère in Les Ébénistes Français (1989, pp. 124-127) and in L'Estampille/L'Objet d'Art (March 1992, pp. 22-44), resulted in the term 'Maître aux Pagodes' for this mysterious ébéniste. Pradère records the following pieces with similar mounts:
-A commode sold Ader, Paris, 14 April 1970, lot 109
-A commode in a private collection, Brussels
-A commode sold from the collection of Mme Lelong, Paris, 11 May 1903, lot 917
-A commode sold Drouot Arcole, Paris, 6 April 1990, lot 192, and now on the Paris art market
-A commode in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, formerly in the Dournovo collection, St. Petersburg
-A commode from the collection of Mrs. Henry Walters and subsequently Colonel and Mrs. Edgar Garbisch, sold Sotheby's New York, 17 May 1980, lot 330 and again 4 May 1985, lot 306, acquired by Roberto Polo, sold Sotheby's New York, 3 November 1989, lot 99
-A commode from the collection of Baron Guy de Rothschild, sold Sotheby's London, 24 November 1972, lot 35 and again 21 July 1977, lot 88
-A commode at Schloss Wilhemstal, Cassel
The Cummings commode distinguishes itself as the finest of these through its rich use of tortoiseshell (all the other commodes cited except possibly for the Lelong commode employ kingwood parquetry veneers) and the unparalleled quality and range of the gilt bronze mounts.
One intriguing attribution for this group of furniture would be to the sons of the celebrated ébéniste, Andre-Charles Boulle, most especially Andre-Charles II. Mounts on pieces by the Maître aux Pagodes are similar to Boulle workshop examples and it would have been natural for the Boulle fils to continue using their father's mounts. An armoire adorned with 'pagodes' and identified as the work of 'un fils du celèbre Boulle', is noted in the Gaignat sale of 1769. The use of tortoiseshell was also a hallmark of the Boulle workshop. It is also interesting to note that a commode appears in the 1765 sale of stock of the renowned ébéniste Charles Cressent with 'deux pagodes sur les tiroirs'.
The only piece by the Maître aux Pagodes documented in the eighteenth century is a bureau plat from Schloss Pforten (illustrated in H. Huth, 'Two French Writing Tables', Burlington Magazine, 1938, LXXII, pp. 76-81). This was acquired by Count Brühl through his agent M. Leleux in Paris in 1749. German rulers, such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Augustus the Strong of Saxony, were particularly passionate about chinoiserie. Augustus the Strong, who had formed the Meissen factory to imitate Chinese porcelain, built a number of palaces around Dresden lavishly decorated in the chinoiserie taste. He also ordered a famous silver and enamelled centerpiece from Johann Melchior Dirglinger 1701-1708, depicting the Great Moghul Aurangzeb seated beneath a canopied pavilion with dragons (see A. Gruber, op.cit., p.303). Brühl was Prime Minister to Augustus III, son of Augustus the Strong, and furnished many of the royal Saxon palaces such as Schloss Moritzburg with lavishly mounted furniture from ébénistes such as Jean-Pierre Latz and Bernard II Van Risen Burgh. It is conceivable that the Cummings commode may have been commissioned for a distinguished German patron such as Brühl.
The commode's recent history is equally intriguing. It first emerges in the celebrated collection of Lionel de Rothschild at Exbury in the south of England, who had purchased this estate following the sale of the palatial residence of his uncle Alfred de Rothschild at Halton. The commode was sold, possibly following Lionel's death in 1942, to the Earl of Wilton. Its first public appearance took place when Lord Wilton lent it to the famous exhibition of Regency furniture at Brighton Pavilion in 1948. Its presence in George IV's extraordinary dragon-filled banqueting hall must have been dazzling. It was sold by Lord Wilton at auction in London in 1950 and was subsequently acquired by Mme. Sacha Guitry, wife of the French matinée idol (information kindly supplied by Mr. Theodore Dell), from whose collection it was purchased by Joanne Cummings and her then husband Nathan for their apartment in the Waldorf Towers, New York