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Lot Essay
An identical bowfronted commode was at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire and was sold by The Earl Fitzwilliam, Christie's at Spencer House, London, 15 July 1948, lot 110. The design of the splendid Rockingham 'pier commode table' and bedroom furnishings can be attributed to the London-trained 'Upholders' Richard Wright and Edward Elwick of Wakefield, Yorkshire (fl. 1745-1771). Both were subscribers to The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754, the London furniture pattern-book that publicised the St. Martin's Lane establishment of the Yorkshire-born Thomas Chippendale.
THE WENTWORTH BED CHAMBER COMMODE
One such commode, possibly the present lot, was listed in Wentworth's 'Blue Papered Bed Chamber', as a 'mahogany commode with 5 drawers and 2 cupboards'. Its form corresponds to that of a commode-flanked chest of drawers, which Chippendale called a 'French Commode Table' (ibid, pl. 48). Commodes of this pattern were likely to have been commissioned for several bedrooms in a house of the scale of Wentworth Woodhouse.
Three commodes of this exact design are known:
1. A commode sold by The Earl Fitzwilliam from Wentworth Woodhouse; Christie's at Spencer House, London, 15 July 1948, lot 110 and later sold anonymously, Christie's, London, 18 November 1982, lot 174. This commode and the present commode share identical mounts.
2. A commode sold anonymously, Sotheby's New York, 27 January 1996, lot 318 (reputedly from J. P. Morgan, illustrated in F. Lewis Hinckley, A Directory of Queen Anne, Early Georgian and Chippendale Furniture, New York, 1971, p. 238, pl. 429). The mounts on this commode are of a mid-18th century rococo-chinoiserie pattern; it also features carrying-handles at each side.
3. The present commode.
A further variation of this model, but on arched bracket feet, was at Nostell Priory, just outside Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1906 and is illustrated in P. Macquoid, The Age of Mahogany, 1906, fig. 135. Another in sabicu was sold at the Wentworth sale, Christie's, London, 8 July 1998, lot 69.
THE CHIPPENDALE WRIGHT & ELWICK PATTERN
This commode reflects Chippendale's promotion of novel 'modern' architecture fusing various architectural styles. Its doors for instance are embellished in the Gothic manner with reeded mouldings cusped in arched tablets; while the drawers' reed-banding frame golden bas-relief cartouches of richly-sculpted ormolu escutcheons that reflect the French 'picturesque' fashion lauded in William Hogarth's, Analysis of Beauty, 1753. They incorporate escutcheons and handles within their flowered and acanthus-wrapped ribbon-scrolls, whose fusion of bubbled and scalloped 'rocailles' serves, like a water-fountain, as an evocation of the nature deity Venus. Its reed-banded rectangular top is elegantly curved above a central nest of drawers in an elliptic bay that echoes the triumphal-arched recess incorporated in its drawer-fitted base. This elliptic form can also be found in a Chippendale pattern such as a bedroom apartment 'China Table', with picturesque triumphal-arched stretcher carved in water-dripping 'rocailles' (Chippendale, op.cit., pl. 51).
THE WENTWORTH CABINET-MAKER: WRIGHT & ELWICK
Messrs. Wright and Elwick, who traded at the 'Glass & Cabinet Ware House' were employed by the Marquess of Rockingham from the late 1740s, and their trade card, while advertising 'Cabinet work of ye Newest Fashion', also announced that Mr Wright had been 'in ye direction of ye Greatest Tapestry Manufactory in England for Upwards of Twenty Years' (C. Gilbert, 'Wright and Elwick of Wakefield', Furniture History, 1976, pp. 34-43). This probably refers to the Soho tapestry workshops, which by the 1750s were under the supervision of Paul Saunders (d. 1771). Saunders, trading in partnership with George Smith Bradshaw as Upholders and Cabinet-Makers in Greek Street, was employed at this period at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, where the same French-fashioned ormolu handles, together with reed enrichments, feature on a pier-commode-table (A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 370). Their introduction to the Marquess of Rockingham at Wentworth Woodhouse may have been effected through the offices of John Carr, Lord Rockingham's architect who had steered another of his patrons, John Spencer of Cannon Hall, to Wright & Elwick of Wakefield. Much of the furniture attributed to Wright & Elwick at Wentworth Woodhouse shares similar traits: a close adherence to designs from Chippendale's Director of 1754 and 1762; quatrefoil panels and 'flying' pierced angle brackets. For a full discussion of The Wentworth cabinet-maker, see the introduction to lot 33, Edward Lennox-Boyd, Wentworth sale catalogue, Christie's, London, 8 July 1998. See also lots 84 & 164 in this sale.
THE WENTWORTH BED CHAMBER COMMODE
One such commode, possibly the present lot, was listed in Wentworth's 'Blue Papered Bed Chamber', as a 'mahogany commode with 5 drawers and 2 cupboards'. Its form corresponds to that of a commode-flanked chest of drawers, which Chippendale called a 'French Commode Table' (ibid, pl. 48). Commodes of this pattern were likely to have been commissioned for several bedrooms in a house of the scale of Wentworth Woodhouse.
Three commodes of this exact design are known:
1. A commode sold by The Earl Fitzwilliam from Wentworth Woodhouse; Christie's at Spencer House, London, 15 July 1948, lot 110 and later sold anonymously, Christie's, London, 18 November 1982, lot 174. This commode and the present commode share identical mounts.
2. A commode sold anonymously, Sotheby's New York, 27 January 1996, lot 318 (reputedly from J. P. Morgan, illustrated in F. Lewis Hinckley, A Directory of Queen Anne, Early Georgian and Chippendale Furniture, New York, 1971, p. 238, pl. 429). The mounts on this commode are of a mid-18th century rococo-chinoiserie pattern; it also features carrying-handles at each side.
3. The present commode.
A further variation of this model, but on arched bracket feet, was at Nostell Priory, just outside Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1906 and is illustrated in P. Macquoid, The Age of Mahogany, 1906, fig. 135. Another in sabicu was sold at the Wentworth sale, Christie's, London, 8 July 1998, lot 69.
THE CHIPPENDALE WRIGHT & ELWICK PATTERN
This commode reflects Chippendale's promotion of novel 'modern' architecture fusing various architectural styles. Its doors for instance are embellished in the Gothic manner with reeded mouldings cusped in arched tablets; while the drawers' reed-banding frame golden bas-relief cartouches of richly-sculpted ormolu escutcheons that reflect the French 'picturesque' fashion lauded in William Hogarth's, Analysis of Beauty, 1753. They incorporate escutcheons and handles within their flowered and acanthus-wrapped ribbon-scrolls, whose fusion of bubbled and scalloped 'rocailles' serves, like a water-fountain, as an evocation of the nature deity Venus. Its reed-banded rectangular top is elegantly curved above a central nest of drawers in an elliptic bay that echoes the triumphal-arched recess incorporated in its drawer-fitted base. This elliptic form can also be found in a Chippendale pattern such as a bedroom apartment 'China Table', with picturesque triumphal-arched stretcher carved in water-dripping 'rocailles' (Chippendale, op.cit., pl. 51).
THE WENTWORTH CABINET-MAKER: WRIGHT & ELWICK
Messrs. Wright and Elwick, who traded at the 'Glass & Cabinet Ware House' were employed by the Marquess of Rockingham from the late 1740s, and their trade card, while advertising 'Cabinet work of ye Newest Fashion', also announced that Mr Wright had been 'in ye direction of ye Greatest Tapestry Manufactory in England for Upwards of Twenty Years' (C. Gilbert, 'Wright and Elwick of Wakefield', Furniture History, 1976, pp. 34-43). This probably refers to the Soho tapestry workshops, which by the 1750s were under the supervision of Paul Saunders (d. 1771). Saunders, trading in partnership with George Smith Bradshaw as Upholders and Cabinet-Makers in Greek Street, was employed at this period at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, where the same French-fashioned ormolu handles, together with reed enrichments, feature on a pier-commode-table (A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig. 370). Their introduction to the Marquess of Rockingham at Wentworth Woodhouse may have been effected through the offices of John Carr, Lord Rockingham's architect who had steered another of his patrons, John Spencer of Cannon Hall, to Wright & Elwick of Wakefield. Much of the furniture attributed to Wright & Elwick at Wentworth Woodhouse shares similar traits: a close adherence to designs from Chippendale's Director of 1754 and 1762; quatrefoil panels and 'flying' pierced angle brackets. For a full discussion of The Wentworth cabinet-maker, see the introduction to lot 33, Edward Lennox-Boyd, Wentworth sale catalogue, Christie's, London, 8 July 1998. See also lots 84 & 164 in this sale.