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Lot Essay
The commode, with truss-scrolled pilasters terminating in satyr hooves, is richly filigreed in brass and tortoiseshell in the Louis Quatorze Roman fashion associated with André Charles Boulle and derived from the engraved Oeuvres of Jean Berain (d.1711).
The top's reed-framed tablet celebrates the pastoral life, and its inlaid 'triumphal-arch' composition features India figures in attendance on festive figures that dance beneath a trellised baldachino borne by Zephyr-winged herms. This same tablet pattern appears on a related commode sold at Drouot Montaigne, Paris, 23 September 1996, lot 18. The India figures appear on the sides of a related commode, with the same pattern of filigree on the drawers, and a top with central vignette of Venus as derived from Berain's engraving celebrating the Element of Water. The latter commode, which was exhibited at Bethnal Green Museum in the 1870's, has been associated with the specialist marquetry-cutter Toussaint Devoye (d.1748) and the maître ébéniste Nicolas Sageot (d.1731). (P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Furniture, vol. II, London, 1996, no. 137)
The top's reed-framed tablet celebrates the pastoral life, and its inlaid 'triumphal-arch' composition features India figures in attendance on festive figures that dance beneath a trellised baldachino borne by Zephyr-winged herms. This same tablet pattern appears on a related commode sold at Drouot Montaigne, Paris, 23 September 1996, lot 18. The India figures appear on the sides of a related commode, with the same pattern of filigree on the drawers, and a top with central vignette of Venus as derived from Berain's engraving celebrating the Element of Water. The latter commode, which was exhibited at Bethnal Green Museum in the 1870's, has been associated with the specialist marquetry-cutter Toussaint Devoye (d.1748) and the maître ébéniste Nicolas Sageot (d.1731). (P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Furniture, vol. II, London, 1996, no. 137)