AFTER THE MODEL BY GUILLAUME BENNEMAN, LATE 19TH CENTURY

The present lot is a faithful copy of the commode supplied by Guillaume Benneman for Louis XVI's apartments at Compiègne in 1786. It was probably made by Sauvage for the Comte de Provence and was later adapted by Benneman under the instruction of Hauré for Louis XVI's Cabinet du Conseil at Fontainebleau, where it remains today. (see J. Meuvret et al., French Cabinet Makers of the Eighteenth Century, 1963, p. 309).

Copied in widely varying degrees of quality throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the present example exhibits a high level of workmanship as becoming of a celebrated Parisian Belle Époque ébéniste such as François Linke who made the model under Index Number 775.