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Lot Essay
This commode belongs to a group of yew-wood commodes attributed to John Mayhew and William Ince of Golden Square, London. The idiosyncratic use of yew as a veneer has been identified as a leit-motif through more than thirty years of their work, for example in the Broadlands, Hampshire commission (see H. Roberts, 'Furniture at Broadlands - II', Country Life', 5 February 1981, pp. 346-347). The use of yew-wood combined with ebonised mouldings, 'therm' angles, chequered line borders and optical treatment of veneers, all found on this commode, are especially typical of the firm's work in the 1760s. Another commode of identical form but larger, was sold by David Style, Esq., Wateringbury Place, Kent, Christie's house sale, 31 May - 2 June 1978, lot 625.
There is a further related group of yew-wood commodes by Mayhew and Ince, although of a more obviously French form and probably influenced by the work of the émigré ébéniste, Pierre Langlois. A pair of commodes of this serpentine French form was supplied to Sir Brook Bridges, Bt., for Goodnestone Park, Kent in 1764, and exhibited in 'Treasures from Kent Houses', Royal Museum, Canterbury, September - October 1984, no. 57. Another commode, of almost identical form to the Goodnestone commodes, was supplied to the antiquarian James West for Alscot Park, Warwickshire in 1766 at a cost of £12.12s and a further pair, almost certainly supplied for Langford Grove, Essex, was sold by Thomas Seymour, Esq., in these Rooms, 3 July 1997, lot 97. This French form is repeated on another mahogany and yew-wood commode from the group, previously in the Moller Collection and illustrated in R.W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England, 1955, fig. 166 (The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 589-598).
There is a further related group of yew-wood commodes by Mayhew and Ince, although of a more obviously French form and probably influenced by the work of the émigré ébéniste, Pierre Langlois. A pair of commodes of this serpentine French form was supplied to Sir Brook Bridges, Bt., for Goodnestone Park, Kent in 1764, and exhibited in 'Treasures from Kent Houses', Royal Museum, Canterbury, September - October 1984, no. 57. Another commode, of almost identical form to the Goodnestone commodes, was supplied to the antiquarian James West for Alscot Park, Warwickshire in 1766 at a cost of £12.12s and a further pair, almost certainly supplied for Langford Grove, Essex, was sold by Thomas Seymour, Esq., in these Rooms, 3 July 1997, lot 97. This French form is repeated on another mahogany and yew-wood commode from the group, previously in the Moller Collection and illustrated in R.W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England, 1955, fig. 166 (The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 589-598).