This pair of elegantly serpentined commodes with floral marquetry and ormolu enrichments relate to a group of commodes manufactured by Pierre Langlois Junior (d.c.1781), who took over the management of the Tottenham Court Road workshops established in the 1750s by his father Pierre Langlois Senior (d.1767).
With its top inlaid with a ribbon-tied bouquet of flowers, and its doors with related matching and mirrored posies accompanied by butterflies, it corresponds to a pair formerly in the collection of the Earls of Craven (see: P. Thornton and W. Reidel, 'Pierre Langlois, Ebéniste', Part 4, Connoisseur, April 1973, pp.257-265, pl.10). However the latter has the posies hung from the pointed arched ribbon banding rather than arranged in an upright position and there are more flowers on the sides instead of the looped and husk-enriched cartouches within quarter-veneered panels with hollow corners, displayed on this pair.
A floral marquetry commode attributed to Pierre Langlois (Junior) of similar compact size and with identical angle mounts and sabots was sold by the executors of the late Thomas Ernest Inman in these Rooms, 29 November 1979, lot 99. See also the note to lot 113 in this sale.