The marble-topped commode, with laurel-wreath escutcheons hung on richly figured mahogany, is conceived as a plinth-supported Grecian temple and its elliptic facade is recessed behind a screen of Doric columns with flower-wreathed capitals. It reflects the antique style introduced in France by architects such as Charles Percier (d.1838) and relates, for instance, to the pier-tables designed in 1809 by the ébéniste Jacob Desmalter for the Emperor Napoleon's appartments at the Palace of Compiègne (see D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, 1989, p. 275). A commode of related form is illustrated in G. Wannenes Mobili di Francia, Milan, p. 67, fig. 90. Its style also relates to patterns published by J.J. Ebert, Jahrbuch zur belehrenden Unterhaltung für Damen, Leipzig, 1815