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Lot Essay
This splendid commode, with its rich marquetry ornamentation of flower-filled vases, rinceaux scrolling foliage and bearded grotesques, displays the fashion in the Louis XIV period for "painting in wood" through marquetry.
The floral designs are clearly indebted to the work of painters such as Jean-Baptiste Monnnoyer- indeed André-Charles Boulle is known to have owned drawings and studies of birds and flowers by Pater fils and several flower paintings by Beaudesson. Inventories taken of Boulle's
inventory in 1715 and 1720 reveal that he continued to supply pieces incorporating fruitwood marquetry right up to the end of his career.
Another possible cabinet-maker for this commode is Aubertin Gaudron, who in 1715 supplied a marquetry commode to the château de Compiègne, with marquetry described as:
...de bois de plusieurs couleurs fond d'ebène ornée milieu d'un vase rempli de fleurs posé sur un bout de table et un masque grotesque au dessous le reste rempli de rinceaux fleurs oiseaux et papillons au naturel...
This describes many of the features on the marquetry top of the Speed commode.
Other closely related commodes include one formerly in the collection of Ogden Phipps, sold Christie's, New York, 23 November 2010, lot 330 ($110,000 exc. premium), and one sold from the Wildenstein Collection, Christie's, London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 115 (£70,000 exc. premium).
The stamp of P.E. Guerin on one of the mounts refers to the New York bronziers first established in New York by Pierre Emmanuel Guerin in 1857 and which remarkably has remained at the same premises in Greenwich Village since 1892, where it operates the only metal foundry in New York city.
The floral designs are clearly indebted to the work of painters such as Jean-Baptiste Monnnoyer- indeed André-Charles Boulle is known to have owned drawings and studies of birds and flowers by Pater fils and several flower paintings by Beaudesson. Inventories taken of Boulle's
inventory in 1715 and 1720 reveal that he continued to supply pieces incorporating fruitwood marquetry right up to the end of his career.
Another possible cabinet-maker for this commode is Aubertin Gaudron, who in 1715 supplied a marquetry commode to the château de Compiègne, with marquetry described as:
...de bois de plusieurs couleurs fond d'ebène ornée milieu d'un vase rempli de fleurs posé sur un bout de table et un masque grotesque au dessous le reste rempli de rinceaux fleurs oiseaux et papillons au naturel...
This describes many of the features on the marquetry top of the Speed commode.
Other closely related commodes include one formerly in the collection of Ogden Phipps, sold Christie's, New York, 23 November 2010, lot 330 ($110,000 exc. premium), and one sold from the Wildenstein Collection, Christie's, London, 14-15 December 2005, lot 115 (£70,000 exc. premium).
The stamp of P.E. Guerin on one of the mounts refers to the New York bronziers first established in New York by Pierre Emmanuel Guerin in 1857 and which remarkably has remained at the same premises in Greenwich Village since 1892, where it operates the only metal foundry in New York city.