OF GEORGE II STYLE, LATE 19TH 20TH CENTURY

The commode's 'Roman' architecture, with drawer-nests raised on triumphal-arches and framed by Bacchic lion-headed and truss-scrolled pilasters, corresponds to that of the library-table designed in the late 1730s for George II's St. James's Palace library by the Rome-trained artist, William Kent (d. 1748) (D. Watkin, The Royal Interiors of Regency England, London, 1984, p. 56). A related library table was supplied for Badminton House, Gloucestershire (P. Macquoid, A History of English Furniture, The Age of Mahogany, London, 1906, fig. 161). The cornice of this commode, with Roman acanthus tied by a pearled reed, also corresponds to that of a lion-hermed library table believed to have come from Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire and acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1948 (J. F. Hayward, English Desks and Bureaux, London, 1968).
A related chest with folding top and lion monopodia, and attributed to William Vile, was in the Benjamin Sonnenberg collection (illustrated in D. FitzGerald, 'A New Yorkers Unusual Collection', Apollo, March, 1967, p. 166, fig. 9).