This commode clothes-press was designed for a bedroom apartment window-pier and its indented 'columnar' corners were intended to harmonise with bed-pillars. The elegantly serpentined profile of the top, conceived in the French 'picturesque' manner, corresponds to that of a 'Commode Chest of Drawers' pattern by William Ince (d.1804) published in conjunction with John Mayhew in their The Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762 (pl. XLIII). Ince and Mayhew's patterns (pls.XLI and XLII) for 'Commode Dressing Tables' and 'Bureau Tables' included the feature of column-supported corners, and this appears on a related mahogany 'commode dressing table' sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, 18 February 1972, lot 47 (and again by Mrs. Nora Prince-Littler, Chestham Park, Henfield, Sussex, Christie's house sale, 18 April 1977, lot 201). However, the latter's 'gothic' columns followed a pattern issued in Thomas Chippendale's, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, London 1754 (pl. LXXXV). Both commodes share richly-fretted and ribbon-scrolled handles that are enriched with Roman-acanthus and scalloped 'embossements', and they relate to 'Designs of Handles & Escutcheons for Brass Work' invented by Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) of St. Martin's Lane and published in his The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, London, 1762, 3rd ed.(pls. CXCIX and CC). He also applied the same pattern on the celebrated rosewood bookcase commissioned in 1759 by William, 5th Earl of Dumfries (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, pl. 2, figs. 63 and 264). This gilt-enriched bookcase, supplied for the Yellow Bedroom at Dumfries House, Scotland has the interior of its 'commode' base fitted with drawers flanking a 'clothes press'.