NAPLES, MID-18TH CENTURY

Furniture in Naples and Southern Italy was slow to discard the Baroque, resulting in the continuation of serpentine bombé forms well into the Rococo period. The form, double-banded panelled parquetry drawers centred with distinctive star roundels and splayed legs ending in ormolu hoof sabots of the present commode is closely related to an example in the Museo Correale, Sorrento (A. González-Palacios, Il mobile nei secoli, vol. III, Milan, 1969, fig. 64). Another similar example, also in this collection, is illustrated op. cit., fig. 55.