BY CLAUDE-CHARLES SAUNIER

This golden commode, with its classical architecture and beautiful tablets of silken 'citronnier' satinwood, typifies the fashionable 'French commode', popularised in London in the 1780s by Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788. The style is associated in particular with Dominique Daguerre and Martin-Eloi Lignereux, the celebrated firm of marchand-merciers with branches in both Paris and London. In England, the taste for this refined Louis XVI style was favoured by George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV, who was encouraged by Daguerre. It was Daguerre who sold a related commode to George, 2nd Earl Spencer (d. 1834) in 1791 (see Countess Spencer, Althorp, London, 1982, p. 7). The Spencer 'commode à l'Anglaise' is likewise of rectilinear form with a white marble slab, flute-enriched pilasters and ormolu-enriched 'toupie' or columnar 'stump' feet and it also bears the stamp of the famous Parisian maître èbèniste Claude-Charles Saunier (d. 1807) of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

The present piece relates to a four drawer satinwood commode, with inlaid columnar angles, but with a satinwood top, sold anonymously, Christie's New York, 25 October 1991, lot 134.