CIRCA 1760

This elegant commode illustrates the transition from the individualistic 'French' influenced designs illustrated in pattern books like Chippendale's Director. Their forms were more clearly derived from contemporary French furniture and even employed some of their techniques, but the combination of inlaid decoration, a hybrid of stylistically old French floral marquetry with more current neoclassical motifs, presents a uniquely English creation. The most well-known practitioner of this style was the French emigré cabinet-maker, Pierre Langlois. His furniture was immensely popular and soon copied by competitors such as Mayhew and Ince as well as John Cobb. Though the present commode closely relates to Langlois and indeed was once attributed to his workshop, the distinctive foliate spray apron on a harewood ground as well as other more subtle differences directly link it to a group of furniture by a currently unknown cabinet-maker, illustrated and discussed in L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, pp.166-170. Wood notes that some of these commodes, which share either the form or decoration of the present lot, have partial cursive inscriptions on the upper drawers that could potentially lead to an identification. (ibid, p. 170). A related commode, formerly from the collection of the 1st Earl Redesdale, Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, sold in the Leverhulme Collection, Sotheby's, London, 26-28 June 2001, lot 128.