The commode, with its silken veneer of golden satinwood framed in purple ribbon-bands of West Indian 'bois d'amarante' has an elegantly serpentined apron and Grecian-scrolled feet in the George III 'antique' fashion introduced around 1780. A 'Commode Dressing Table' of this pattern featured in Messrs. A. Hepplewhite and Co.'s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788 (pl. 76) and also appeared in the 1789 Estimate Sketch Book of Gillows of London and Lancaster (L. Boynton (ed.), Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 117).
The pattern for its 'poetic' handles, of pearled patterae festooned with beribboned laurels, also features in a contemporary metal-worker pattern-book (numbered 1842) (see N. Goodison, 'The Victoria and Albert Museum's Collection of Metal-Work Pattern Books', Furniture History, 1975, fig. 22).