Lot Essay
This rare pair of commodes are conceived in the Transitional Louis XV/XVI style, fashionable from the early 1750s through the late 1760s. The cabriole legs and general overall form copy French commodes of this date. The carved decoration is however more avowedly Neoclassical in the got grec style indicating a date towards the end of the transitional phase around 1770.
A similar floral trellis pattern framing a portrait medallion designed by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre and engraved by Claude-Henri Watelet for L'Art de peindre, pome, 1760, is illustrated in S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, fig. 320. Pierre's vignettes were much admired by Diderot.
An encoignure with similar trellis decoration, circa 1765-68, with the arms of the Kurfrst of Trier Johann Philipp von Walderdorff, made for the Residenzschloss, Trier, or the Residenz, Koblenz, now in the Trier Museum, is illustrated H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Mbels, Vol II, Munich, 1970, fig. 648.
A similar floral trellis pattern framing a portrait medallion designed by Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre and engraved by Claude-Henri Watelet for L'Art de peindre, pome, 1760, is illustrated in S. Eriksen, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, fig. 320. Pierre's vignettes were much admired by Diderot.
An encoignure with similar trellis decoration, circa 1765-68, with the arms of the Kurfrst of Trier Johann Philipp von Walderdorff, made for the Residenzschloss, Trier, or the Residenz, Koblenz, now in the Trier Museum, is illustrated H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des deutschen Mbels, Vol II, Munich, 1970, fig. 648.