IN THE MANNER OF CHRISTOPHER FUHRLOHG, CIRCA 1770

The rectilinear commodes, with canted pilasters terminating in truss-scrolled feet, reflect the mid-18th century French fashion that appears to have been introduced to London in the 1760s by the Paris-trained Swedish ébéniste Christopher Fuhrlohg (d. c. 1790), who signed a related vase-embellished commode at Castle Howard, Yorkshire. The same form of pilasters features on another of Fuhrlohg's signed commodes, dated 1772 which displays a medallion of Erato, the Muse of Lyric Poetry (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, figs. 369 and 368). The Castle Howard commode, dated 1767, is thought to have been executed by Fuhrlohg at the start of his London career with the Berkeley Square cabinet-makers William and John Linnell, and before the establishment of his Tottenham Court Road workshops and court appointment as 'Cabinet-maker, Inlayer and Ebeniste' to George, Prince of Wales, later George IV. The commode's Grecian urns, which are displayed on trellised altar-pedestals, relate to patterns in Recueil elementaire d'Architecture, vol. VI, 1765, by the architect Jean-François Neufforge (d. 1791). Such patterns also correspond to an urn and pedestal inlaid on a medal-cabinet, which is thought to have been supplied to the banker Robert Child for Osterley Park, Middlesex by the Linnells, but crafted by Fuhrlohg and his compatriot Georg Haupt (d. 1784), before the latter's appointment as ébéniste to King Adolf Frederick of Sweden (d. 1771) (H. Hayward, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, vol. II, fig. 26). In addition, the ram-headed urn appears on a commode, that conceals a Frederick Beck harpsichord and is embellished with an Erato medallion, such as Fuhrlohg's half-brother and partner Johann Christian Linning (fl. 1769-76) exhibited at the 1775 Society of Artists (L. Wood, op. cit, p. 120, fig. 114). Four such 'urn' medallions appear, alongside the Muse Erato on one of a pair of commodes formerly in the possession of the Earls Temple (L. Wood, op. cit., p. 111, fig. 107).

Fuhrlohg's own furniture and the stock-in-trade of his Gerrard Street house was sold by Christie's on 21 February 1787 and described as consisting of a 'Great variety of Elegant Mahogany and Sattin-Wood articles, curiously [finely] Inlaid, several of which are on a new Construction, such as Bookcases, Commodes...' (G. Beard and C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, Leeds, 1986, pp. 323-325). The commode tops, with palm-flowered and lozenged tablets, relate to Roman-mosaic ceiling patterns invented by Robert Adam (d. 1792) in the 1760s. Their sacred urns and 'Venus' pearl-strings reflect the architect's celebrated Etruscan vase-columbarium style. The poetic theme, evoking 'sacrifices at love's altar in antiquity', is echoed by the commodes' inlaid tablets, which include palm-flowered urns. The pattern of each top, inlaid with lozenge tablets of urns and rinceaux of palm-flowered acanthus, also appears on Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland's bureau dressing-table, now at Alnwick Castle, Northumberland (L. Wood, op. cit., p. 121, figs. 116 and 117).

This pair of commodes was manufactured en suite with a Pembroke table, whose cental lozenged compartment was enriched with a shell, and possibly supplied to an ancestor of the Rt. Hon. The Lord Forbes of Castle Forbes, Aberdeenshire, Scotland (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, pp. 145 & 146, figs. 143 and 144) and sold by Lord Forbes, Sotheby's, London, 29 May 1964, lot 185.

CASTLE FORBES
The original Forbes family castle was near Rhynie, on the Braws of Forbes, and the name of Castle Forbes was later transferred to Putachie, on the banks of the Don, where in 1815 the 18th Lord Forbes built the present Castle Forbes on the site of the old Putachie.