Lot Essay
This marble-topped commode with fluted demi-columns, paw feet and golden bas-relief madallions and tablets framed by Etruscan-black ribbon inlay, reflects the French/antique style promoted by Thomas Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary, 1803 and Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist's Encyclopedia, 1804-7 while its enrichment of golden bas-relief medallions and tablets is typical of antiquarian taste in the early 19th Century. The circular medallions, celebrating the triumph of love, derive from French eighteenth Century subjects entitled 'Sacrifice a L'Amour' and 'Offrande a L'Amour', which were engraved by J.J. Avril in 1802.
Oval medallions, at the sides, portray scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and are inspired by bronze plaquettes by Guglielmo della Porta (d. 1577). One portrays Perseus turning Phineus to stone, (of which there is a version in the Hamburg Museum of Decorative Arts), and the other Apollo and Diana slaying the children of Niobe. Finally, the lower tablet of horned chimera assisting ewer-bearing putti filling paterae with wine derives from a Bacchanalian bas-relief from Trajan's Forum, displayed at the Aldobrandini Palace and illustrated in Charles Heathcote Tatham's Etchings representing the Best Examples of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, 1799.
Such reliefs were manufactured under the direction of Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (d. 1854), who held the Royal Warrant as Clock and Watchmaker, but also dealt in decorative furniture and ormolu imported from Paris, particularly from the bronze-manufacturer Pierre-Maximilien Delafontaine (G. de Bellaigue, 'The Vulliamys and France', Furniture History Society Journal, 1967 pp. 45-53). The Aldobrandini reief was amongst some 'chased Ornaments designed...from the Antique' that he acquired from Delafontaine for the Prince Regent's magnificent Carlton House ink-stand, invoiced in April 1810 at the enormous cost of 105 guineas. However, he had already included English renditions of this relief by a Mr. Barnett on a clock for the Prince that he invoiced two years previously (G. de Bellaigue, op. cit, pl. 13A). Similarly, the griffin relief also featured on Vulliamy clocks and was manufactured for them by Messrs. Barnett and Weston in 1821 (G. de Bellaigue, op. cit., pl. 14a). Finally, the hound handles are characteristic of Vulliamy's oeuvre and appear on the documented 'Pair of Rose wood Inkstands with sarcophagus Tazze...2 small dogs heads for drawers' supplied by Vulliamy in 1815 (P.R.O., Chancery Lane). An inkstand of this model, although in oak, was sold at Christie's New York, 25 October 1986).
Vulliamy was recognised as 'Furniture man' to George, Prince Regent, later King George IV and is known to have supplied the Prince with 'Metal Work for a Pier Commode (altered to correspond with a French Cabinet with seve (sres) China Pannels)' in 1812 (G. de Bellaigue, op. cit., p. 46). Thus, while he was certainly capable of supplying furniture such as this commode (indeed he invoiced the Prince Regent in 1814 for 'Four mahogany circular stands with very thick black ebony edges'), he was also recorded three years earlier providing metalwork for furniture that was manufactured by 'Mr Tatham', so there is a possibilitly that this ebony-inlaid cabinet was executed by the Mount Street firm of Thomas Tatham (d.1818), brother of the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham and listed at that time as Tatham & Co. or Tatham, Bailey and Saunders (G. Beard, English Furniture Makers, London, 1986, pp. 277-279).
Oval medallions, at the sides, portray scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses and are inspired by bronze plaquettes by Guglielmo della Porta (d. 1577). One portrays Perseus turning Phineus to stone, (of which there is a version in the Hamburg Museum of Decorative Arts), and the other Apollo and Diana slaying the children of Niobe. Finally, the lower tablet of horned chimera assisting ewer-bearing putti filling paterae with wine derives from a Bacchanalian bas-relief from Trajan's Forum, displayed at the Aldobrandini Palace and illustrated in Charles Heathcote Tatham's Etchings representing the Best Examples of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, 1799.
Such reliefs were manufactured under the direction of Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (d. 1854), who held the Royal Warrant as Clock and Watchmaker, but also dealt in decorative furniture and ormolu imported from Paris, particularly from the bronze-manufacturer Pierre-Maximilien Delafontaine (G. de Bellaigue, 'The Vulliamys and France', Furniture History Society Journal, 1967 pp. 45-53). The Aldobrandini reief was amongst some 'chased Ornaments designed...from the Antique' that he acquired from Delafontaine for the Prince Regent's magnificent Carlton House ink-stand, invoiced in April 1810 at the enormous cost of 105 guineas. However, he had already included English renditions of this relief by a Mr. Barnett on a clock for the Prince that he invoiced two years previously (G. de Bellaigue, op. cit, pl. 13A). Similarly, the griffin relief also featured on Vulliamy clocks and was manufactured for them by Messrs. Barnett and Weston in 1821 (G. de Bellaigue, op. cit., pl. 14a). Finally, the hound handles are characteristic of Vulliamy's oeuvre and appear on the documented 'Pair of Rose wood Inkstands with sarcophagus Tazze...2 small dogs heads for drawers' supplied by Vulliamy in 1815 (P.R.O., Chancery Lane). An inkstand of this model, although in oak, was sold at Christie's New York, 25 October 1986).
Vulliamy was recognised as 'Furniture man' to George, Prince Regent, later King George IV and is known to have supplied the Prince with 'Metal Work for a Pier Commode (altered to correspond with a French Cabinet with seve (sres) China Pannels)' in 1812 (G. de Bellaigue, op. cit., p. 46). Thus, while he was certainly capable of supplying furniture such as this commode (indeed he invoiced the Prince Regent in 1814 for 'Four mahogany circular stands with very thick black ebony edges'), he was also recorded three years earlier providing metalwork for furniture that was manufactured by 'Mr Tatham', so there is a possibilitly that this ebony-inlaid cabinet was executed by the Mount Street firm of Thomas Tatham (d.1818), brother of the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham and listed at that time as Tatham & Co. or Tatham, Bailey and Saunders (G. Beard, English Furniture Makers, London, 1986, pp. 277-279).