This superb commode is of an extremely rare antiquarian form, combining fashionable 1750s fretwork with high baluster legs. It seems possible that the commode was commissioned to harmonise with the decoration and form of an earlier house which was being updated in the 1750s or 1760s. The label on this commode bears the name of Sharpham House in Devon, now a villa built by Sir Robert Taylor for Captain Philemon Pownoll (d. 1780), following his purchase of the estate in 1765. With it came an Elizabethan house which was to be replaced by Taylor's villa after 1770. Alhough the secure provenance of the commode is from the 19th century owners of the house, it is irresistible to speculate that this commode formed part of an attempt by Pownoll to update the existing house in 1765-1770, prior to the commencement of the new house.
Captain Pownoll was killed in 1780 and his new house, in a commanding position overlooking the River Dart, passed to his daughter, Jane and then to their son John Bastard, before its sale in 1841. It was bought then or soon afterwards by Richard Durant who invested considerably in improving the area and built a new inn, the Durant Arms. His unmarried daughter, Elizabeth, who was born in Epping Forest in 1831, was recorded as living in the house in the 1891 census.
Sharpham formed the subject of two articles by Marcus Binney in Country Life, 17 and 24 April 1969, pp. 952-955 and 1014-1017.