Lot Essay
This serpentined commode reflects the mid-18th century fashion for curvacious French style furniture embellished with exotic veneers and ormolu mounts. This was popularised by Thomas Chippendale, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Directors, 1754-63 and Mayhew & Ince, Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762, whose plate XVIII illustrates a 'Comode Chest of Drawers' with this pattern of slab. Veneered with panels of figured walnut banded with tulipwood and enriched with gilt roman foliage, the commode's top is inlaid with a central 'poetic' sunburst, and its drawers with bands with pans coupes corners in the French manner. Its canted corners are edged with ormolu, comprising husk festoons framed within open cartouches of the shoulders, and terminate in satyr-hoof feet emerging from acanthus foliage.
Together with a closely related commode, inlaid with pastoral trophies of musical instruments, (sold in these Rooms, 25 June 1975, lot 96), it is likely to have been supplied for Edward, 9th Duke of Norfolk (d. 1777). In the 1750's, he had been amongst the foremost promoters of Parisian fashions with the French style Music Room of his St. James's Square house (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum), and this commode may have been supplied for this London house or else for his palatial Nottingham house, Worksop Manor, which was executed in the 1760's to the designs of architect James Paine (d. 1789). Two other 'pastoral' commodes form part of the same group; one, now in a private collection, is likely to have formed part of the furnishings of Blenheim Palace, carried out by ... 4th Duke of Marlborough, Groom of the Bedchamber to King George III and dedicatee of Mayhew & Ince's Universal System; the other, also incorporating burr-wood panels, belonged to the picture-dealer Noel Desanfans (1745-1807) and is now in the Dulwich Art Gallery (illustrated: Antique Collector, October 1982, p. 84). This group of commodes has been attributed to the Tottenham Court Road cabinet-maker Pierre Langlois (fl. 1759-81), whose elaborately engraved trade card displaying a French marquetry commode announced that he made 'Fine .. commodes .. inlaid in the Politest manner' and 'Inscrutee de fleurs'. The fine ormolu mounts on Langlois' furniture have been attributed to the French emigré metalworker Dominique Jean (active 1760-1807). (....)
Together with a closely related commode, inlaid with pastoral trophies of musical instruments, (sold in these Rooms, 25 June 1975, lot 96), it is likely to have been supplied for Edward, 9th Duke of Norfolk (d. 1777). In the 1750's, he had been amongst the foremost promoters of Parisian fashions with the French style Music Room of his St. James's Square house (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum), and this commode may have been supplied for this London house or else for his palatial Nottingham house, Worksop Manor, which was executed in the 1760's to the designs of architect James Paine (d. 1789). Two other 'pastoral' commodes form part of the same group; one, now in a private collection, is likely to have formed part of the furnishings of Blenheim Palace, carried out by ... 4th Duke of Marlborough, Groom of the Bedchamber to King George III and dedicatee of Mayhew & Ince's Universal System; the other, also incorporating burr-wood panels, belonged to the picture-dealer Noel Desanfans (1745-1807) and is now in the Dulwich Art Gallery (illustrated: Antique Collector, October 1982, p. 84). This group of commodes has been attributed to the Tottenham Court Road cabinet-maker Pierre Langlois (fl. 1759-81), whose elaborately engraved trade card displaying a French marquetry commode announced that he made 'Fine .. commodes .. inlaid in the Politest manner' and 'Inscrutee de fleurs'. The fine ormolu mounts on Langlois' furniture have been attributed to the French emigré metalworker Dominique Jean (active 1760-1807). (....)