Lot Essay
This commode with its serpentine form and pictorial inlay shows the considerable influence of French cabinetmaking on English furniture dating from the 1760's and 1770's. It was also around this time that French engravings became available to cabinetmakers as sources for marquetry design. The top of this commode, inlaid with a flower-festooned musical trophy, is based on engravings by A. Benoist in his Book of Different Trophies, published in London after drawings by F. Vivares in 1769 (see G. de Bellaigue's 'Engravings and the French Eighteenth-Century Marqueteur', Burlington Magazine, June 1965, p.243, fig.29). The sacred urns which feature on the sides are taken from a pattern published by C. Bacquoy after designs by French architect J. C. Delafosse in his Nouvelle Iconologie Historique of 1768 (see G. de Bellaigue, 'English Marquetry's Debt to France', Country Life, 13 June 1968, p.1597). The front is centrally inlaid in the antique manner with a ribbon-tied love-trophy uniting Cupid's bow and quiver with Hymen's torch within festooned roses, sacred to Venus and jasmine, all on a radiating ground.
This commode bears a striking resemblence to one supplied for Sir Rowland Winn at Nostell Priory, listed in Thomas Chippendale's accounts as 'Lady Winn's Commode'. As the design and timbers are unfamiliar to known Chippendale work, Christopher Gilbert presumes that this piece was probably purchased by Chippendale from another firm specializing in marquetry (see C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, vol.I, p.172 and vol.II, p.124, pl.220). The Nostell commode features the same crossed bow, quiver and flambeau, looped garlands of roses and spring flowers and neoclassical urns executed in the same manner as on the Hilson commode. Both commodes belong to a large and distinctive group of marquetry furniture with similar ornament (many with highly figured veneers) although of widely varying form and character. Lucy Wood discusses this group ('the Stamner group') in her Catalogue of Commodes, 1994, pp.123-134. Another notable example was supplied to The Earl of Shaftesbury for St. Giles's House, Dorset (sold by Christie's London, 12 May 1955, lot 108) and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see E.T. Joy and B.S. Kern, 'An English Neo-Classic Commode and Some Interesting Comparisons, The Antique Collector, June/July 1971, pp.126-133). A further example is a side table sold by Arthur Leidesdorf, Sotheby Co., London, 27-28 June 1974, lot 43 and illustrated in F.L. Hinckley, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Regency Furniture, 1987, p.180, pl.146. This side table features the same guilloche-entwined flowerhead banding present on this commode.
The fashion for French style inlay was practiced by leading London cabinetmaker John Cobb as well as emigrant cabinetmakers such as Christopher Fuhrlohg and Georg Haupt from Sweden, and Frenchman Pierre Langlois. While it is difficult to determine the authorship of this group, certainly the strong French characteristics would suggest a familiarity with Parisian cabinetmaking.
This commode bears a striking resemblence to one supplied for Sir Rowland Winn at Nostell Priory, listed in Thomas Chippendale's accounts as 'Lady Winn's Commode'. As the design and timbers are unfamiliar to known Chippendale work, Christopher Gilbert presumes that this piece was probably purchased by Chippendale from another firm specializing in marquetry (see C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, vol.I, p.172 and vol.II, p.124, pl.220). The Nostell commode features the same crossed bow, quiver and flambeau, looped garlands of roses and spring flowers and neoclassical urns executed in the same manner as on the Hilson commode. Both commodes belong to a large and distinctive group of marquetry furniture with similar ornament (many with highly figured veneers) although of widely varying form and character. Lucy Wood discusses this group ('the Stamner group') in her Catalogue of Commodes, 1994, pp.123-134. Another notable example was supplied to The Earl of Shaftesbury for St. Giles's House, Dorset (sold by Christie's London, 12 May 1955, lot 108) and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see E.T. Joy and B.S. Kern, 'An English Neo-Classic Commode and Some Interesting Comparisons, The Antique Collector, June/July 1971, pp.126-133). A further example is a side table sold by Arthur Leidesdorf, Sotheby Co., London, 27-28 June 1974, lot 43 and illustrated in F.L. Hinckley, Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Regency Furniture, 1987, p.180, pl.146. This side table features the same guilloche-entwined flowerhead banding present on this commode.
The fashion for French style inlay was practiced by leading London cabinetmaker John Cobb as well as emigrant cabinetmakers such as Christopher Fuhrlohg and Georg Haupt from Sweden, and Frenchman Pierre Langlois. While it is difficult to determine the authorship of this group, certainly the strong French characteristics would suggest a familiarity with Parisian cabinetmaking.