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Lot Essay
This magnificent 'pier-commode-table' is designed in the George III French/antique manner suited to bedroom apartments designed by the Rome-trained architect Robert Adam (d. 1792) and decorated in the fashionable 1770s à la Français style. 'Bob the Roman' Adam's publication of his Works in Architecture, 1773-1779 helped popularise the court architect's Roman system of harmonising furniture with walls and ceilings through the introduction of colorful tablets and medallions. Here the golden commode's silken-figured façade displays a festive tablet, whose richly polychromed medallion is inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods, and evokes lyric poetry concerning sacrifices at Love's altar in antiquity. It depicts the moon-deity and huntress Diana (Selene), twin sister of the sun and poetry-deity Apollo, at the moment of her discovery of Endymion asleep on Mount Latmus.
THE ORNAMENT
The cupid-bowed 'table' top is wreathed by a ribbon-guilloche of Grecian palm-flowers and 'Venus' pearls in a bas-relief border. Its angles project above pilasters that are capped, in sacraficial-altar fashion, by acanthus-wrapped cartouches bearing laurel-festooned bacchic ram-heads on graceful Ionic-scrolled and antique-fluted trusses. More beribboned laurels festoon the striate-figured 'table' frieze; while palms flower the pilasters, whose hermed stump feet are enriched with trompe l'oeil flutes. The elliptical top is mosaiced in compartments with a laurel-wreathed and palm-flowered tablet of golden sycamore framing a demi-medallion, whose scalloped and pearled rays radiate from a sunflower that recalls Apollo's 'love' Clytie, and his temple popularised by Robert Woods' Ruins of Palmyra, 1753 (pl. 19). The commode's 'table' frame is banded by golden 'Arcadian' reeds, while its angles are fitted with French-fashioned encoignures concealing a shelf-fitted compartment. Their tablets, with palm-flowered spandrels like the façade, display laurelled and scrolled rinçeaux of Roman acanthus accompanying palm-flowered sacred urns. The latter recalls the Etruscan fashion for vase-decorated rooms promoted by Adam's Works in Architecture. Such ornament was further popularised in 1779, when the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale Junior (d. 1822) issued a pattern-book entitled Sketches of Ornament. The medallion relates to the copper paintings of the Birmingham metalworker Matthew Boulton, for whom the artist Angelica Kauffman (d. 1810) provided 'little pictures' in the late 1770s (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, p. 269). The elegant 'arabesque' or 'antique' ornaments can also be compared to those issued by Placido Columbani, an Italian artist employed by Adam and the author of a New Book of Ornaments, containing a variety of elegant designs for modern panels, commonly executed in stucco, wood or painting, and used in decorating Principal Rooms, 1775. Its festive ram-headed cartouches, conceived in the à la grèque style associated with the Parisian 'Athenienne' tripod-altars, were a popular feature of commodes executed by the famed Oeben family of ébénistes.
THE ATTRIBUTION TO MAYHEW AND INCE
This commode can be attributed on stylistic grounds to the leading London cabinet-makers, William Ince and John Mayhew. In 1775 the partners supplied a magnificent ormolu-mounted satinwood, harewood and marquetry commode, designed in 1774 by Robert Adam, for the Countess of Derby's dressing room at Derby House in London. They described the commode as being executed in 'curious [richly figured] Woods very Finely inlaid with Etruscan Ornaments enriched with rich /wrought brass Mouldings Antique Heads and Drapery Ovals ...'. This commode, designed by Adam in the new Etruscan style, was among the very first bow-fronted examples to be executed. His two preparatory drawings for it are dated 1774 and the engraved plate was published in The Works in Architecture in 1779 (vol. II, pt. 1, pl. VIII). The present commode, along with a group of other closely related serpentine and bow-fronted commodes attributed to Mayhew and Ince, all relate to the Derby House commode. The characteristics of their work that appear on this commode include: the skilled use of engraved marquetry; the combination of color-stained marquetry with a painted copper mythological panel; the use of good quality ormolu mounts; and the incorporation of neo-classical motifs such as urns and medallions with bold swags of husks draped over them. However, what is unusual in the present commode is the projecting front corners, the other commodes in the group being either just bow-fronted or serpentined (see H. Roberts, 'The Derby House Commode', The Burlington Magazine, May 1985, pp. 275-283).
The same palm-flowered ormolu border appears on one of the bow-fronted commodes in the Derby House group. It also has a related Diana and Endymion painted medallion. This latter commode, previously in the collection of the 1st Lord Ashburton (d. 1848) was sold from the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, Christie's, London, 9 July 1992, lot 162. It is tempting to ascribe the ormolu mounts on the two commodes to Boulton and Fothergill, the celebrated ormolu manufacturers in Soho, Birmingham, but to date very little evidence of significant collaboration between the two firms has surfaced except for correspondence concerning the Duchess of Manchester's cabinet (designed by Robert Adam and executed by Mayhew and Ince) and a chimneypiece and tripods for Lord Kerry (L. Boynton (ed.), 'An Ince and Mayhew Correspondence', Furniture History, 1966, vol. II, pp. 23-36). Mayhew and Ince also supplied an ormolu-mounted urn and pedestal to Lord Kerry, which has a finely-chased goat mask probably by Bouton and Fothergill (C. Cator, 'The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince, "The Idlest Ostentation"', Furniture History, 1990, p. 28, figs. 3 and 4). Interestingly, correspondence also exists between Boulton and Fothergill and George Seddon which discussed the partners' ability to execute paintings on copper for the Hon. Mrs. Montague (Boynton, op. cit., p. 23).
A similar arrangement of marquetry displayed around a painted medallion appears on another commode in the Derby House group (illustrated in P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1924, vol. II, p. 144, fig. 29).
THE ORNAMENT
The cupid-bowed 'table' top is wreathed by a ribbon-guilloche of Grecian palm-flowers and 'Venus' pearls in a bas-relief border. Its angles project above pilasters that are capped, in sacraficial-altar fashion, by acanthus-wrapped cartouches bearing laurel-festooned bacchic ram-heads on graceful Ionic-scrolled and antique-fluted trusses. More beribboned laurels festoon the striate-figured 'table' frieze; while palms flower the pilasters, whose hermed stump feet are enriched with trompe l'oeil flutes. The elliptical top is mosaiced in compartments with a laurel-wreathed and palm-flowered tablet of golden sycamore framing a demi-medallion, whose scalloped and pearled rays radiate from a sunflower that recalls Apollo's 'love' Clytie, and his temple popularised by Robert Woods' Ruins of Palmyra, 1753 (pl. 19). The commode's 'table' frame is banded by golden 'Arcadian' reeds, while its angles are fitted with French-fashioned encoignures concealing a shelf-fitted compartment. Their tablets, with palm-flowered spandrels like the façade, display laurelled and scrolled rinçeaux of Roman acanthus accompanying palm-flowered sacred urns. The latter recalls the Etruscan fashion for vase-decorated rooms promoted by Adam's Works in Architecture. Such ornament was further popularised in 1779, when the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale Junior (d. 1822) issued a pattern-book entitled Sketches of Ornament. The medallion relates to the copper paintings of the Birmingham metalworker Matthew Boulton, for whom the artist Angelica Kauffman (d. 1810) provided 'little pictures' in the late 1770s (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London, 2002, p. 269). The elegant 'arabesque' or 'antique' ornaments can also be compared to those issued by Placido Columbani, an Italian artist employed by Adam and the author of a New Book of Ornaments, containing a variety of elegant designs for modern panels, commonly executed in stucco, wood or painting, and used in decorating Principal Rooms, 1775. Its festive ram-headed cartouches, conceived in the à la grèque style associated with the Parisian 'Athenienne' tripod-altars, were a popular feature of commodes executed by the famed Oeben family of ébénistes.
THE ATTRIBUTION TO MAYHEW AND INCE
This commode can be attributed on stylistic grounds to the leading London cabinet-makers, William Ince and John Mayhew. In 1775 the partners supplied a magnificent ormolu-mounted satinwood, harewood and marquetry commode, designed in 1774 by Robert Adam, for the Countess of Derby's dressing room at Derby House in London. They described the commode as being executed in 'curious [richly figured] Woods very Finely inlaid with Etruscan Ornaments enriched with rich /wrought brass Mouldings Antique Heads and Drapery Ovals ...'. This commode, designed by Adam in the new Etruscan style, was among the very first bow-fronted examples to be executed. His two preparatory drawings for it are dated 1774 and the engraved plate was published in The Works in Architecture in 1779 (vol. II, pt. 1, pl. VIII). The present commode, along with a group of other closely related serpentine and bow-fronted commodes attributed to Mayhew and Ince, all relate to the Derby House commode. The characteristics of their work that appear on this commode include: the skilled use of engraved marquetry; the combination of color-stained marquetry with a painted copper mythological panel; the use of good quality ormolu mounts; and the incorporation of neo-classical motifs such as urns and medallions with bold swags of husks draped over them. However, what is unusual in the present commode is the projecting front corners, the other commodes in the group being either just bow-fronted or serpentined (see H. Roberts, 'The Derby House Commode', The Burlington Magazine, May 1985, pp. 275-283).
The same palm-flowered ormolu border appears on one of the bow-fronted commodes in the Derby House group. It also has a related Diana and Endymion painted medallion. This latter commode, previously in the collection of the 1st Lord Ashburton (d. 1848) was sold from the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, Christie's, London, 9 July 1992, lot 162. It is tempting to ascribe the ormolu mounts on the two commodes to Boulton and Fothergill, the celebrated ormolu manufacturers in Soho, Birmingham, but to date very little evidence of significant collaboration between the two firms has surfaced except for correspondence concerning the Duchess of Manchester's cabinet (designed by Robert Adam and executed by Mayhew and Ince) and a chimneypiece and tripods for Lord Kerry (L. Boynton (ed.), 'An Ince and Mayhew Correspondence', Furniture History, 1966, vol. II, pp. 23-36). Mayhew and Ince also supplied an ormolu-mounted urn and pedestal to Lord Kerry, which has a finely-chased goat mask probably by Bouton and Fothergill (C. Cator, 'The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince, "The Idlest Ostentation"', Furniture History, 1990, p. 28, figs. 3 and 4). Interestingly, correspondence also exists between Boulton and Fothergill and George Seddon which discussed the partners' ability to execute paintings on copper for the Hon. Mrs. Montague (Boynton, op. cit., p. 23).
A similar arrangement of marquetry displayed around a painted medallion appears on another commode in the Derby House group (illustrated in P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1924, vol. II, p. 144, fig. 29).