CIRCA 1790

This commode was in the illustrious collection of Florence and Richard Crane Jr., the youngest son of Richard Teller Crane, of the Crane Company of Chicago. In the 1916 Connoisseur article on satinwood furniture, Frederick Litchfield cites many of his illustrated examples as from a collection he assisted “an American gentleman” in buying for his “mansion he was building”, which through later provenance can now be identified as that at 1550 North Lake Shore Drive. Crane later hired architect David Adler to rebuild a proper country house at Castle Hill, Ipswich, Massachusetts, which incorporated numerous examples of early European paneling, Old Master paintings and important pieces of Georgian furniture, all set in the surrounds of a Frederick Law Olmstead Jr. landscape. After the death of Florence Crane in 1949 the majority of her estate was sold by Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 29-30 June 1950, although the present commode was excluded from the sale, and instead bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, of which she was a benefactor.
A very similar commode from Thornton Hall is illustrated and discussed in L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, p. 283-288. These two examples share the same marquetry fan pattern to the top, inlaid paterae to the supports and use of exotic woods. The Thornton Hall example retains its original feet, although the handles have also been removed, and the roundels have been repainted.