Harris Lindsay − Works of Art

The use of Japanese lacquer on a commode of this type is very unusual in English furniture, being more often found in cabinets made in France.(1)  The finely chased gilt-bronze mounts are the same as those on a pair of serpentine marquetry side tables attributed to John Cobb (c.1715-1778) that were sold at auction in 1968 from the collection of the 4th Baron Wrottesley.(2)  The apron mount and corner mounts are of exactly the same form, even including the plain bands down the edge of the leg, and the foot mounts appear to differ only in being slightly more attenuated on the tables, to fit the more slender feet. The tables relate to a group of marquetry tables ascribed to Cobb's workshop,(3)  including a pair from Kenwood, and which all in turn relate to the well-known marquetry commode supplied to Lord Methuen at Corsham Court, Wiltshire by Cobb in 1772,(4)  and to a small group of similar commodes, including one attributed to Cobb in the Victoria and Albert Museum,(5)  one in the Lady Lever Art Gallery,(6)  and one previously also owned by Lord Lever.(7)

These commodes, in the French manner, are clearly related to the present commode. They are all of bombé form and have French-style mounts, and share other common features, such attributed to Pierre Langlois (1738-1781), from the 1760s. Indeed Langlois is known to have supplied at least two japanned commodes with marble tops, of very similar scale to this present commode, to Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill.(8)  However, as has been convincingly argued, there are distinct differences between the ‘Cobb group' and ‘Langlois group' of commodes, and on this basis this commode is clearly part of the former group. It was pointed out by Peter Thornton and William Rieder, in their series of articles about Pierre Langlois, that on the ‘Corsham Group' of commodes, from Cobb's workshop, the doors are hinged on their side faces and not on the front of the commode, and that the apron forms an integral part of the door, both features in contrast to Langlois' commodes, where the doors are hinged on the front of the commode and where the apron is fixed to the carcase.(9)

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Footnotes

1. For example, commodes by Bernard II van Risenburgh in the Louvre (inv. no. OA 11193) and in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Museum no. 1094- 1882).

2. Sotheby's London, English Furniture, 28th June 1968, lot 161 (£7,000). Subsequently sold again, Christie's London, English Furniture, 9th April 1981, lot 93 (£44,000).And again at  Sotheby's , New York, 21st October 2005 ( $374,400) See also Lucy Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, 1994, figs. 132 & 133, p. 133. The same mounts also appear on a related marquetry side table sold at Christie's London,November 23rd 1972, lot 83 (£16,500), with the apron mount placed on the side friezes of the table.

3. Colin Streeter, ‘Marquetry Tables from Cobb's Workshop', Furniture History, Vol. X, 1974, pp.52-53.

4. See, for example, the exhibition catalogue The Treasure Houses of Britain, ed. Gervase Jackson-Stops, 1985, no. 252, pp. 328-329. Also illustrated in Lucy Wood, op. cit., 1994, figs. 75-77, p. 91. 5 Museum no. W.30-1937. See Desmond Fitzgerald, Georgian Furniture, 1969, no. 103.

6. Lucy Wood, op. cit., no. 7, pp. 88- 97, where this group of commodes is fully discussed.

7. Ibid., figs. 81 & 82, p. 93.

8. See Peter Thornton and William Rieder, ‘Pierre Langlois, Ebéniste. Part 1', Connoisseur, December 1971, p. 285 and note 26, p. 288. These commodes were sold as lots 89 and 90 in the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842.

9. Peter Thornton and William Rieder, ‘Pierre Langlois, Ebéniste. Part 5', Connoisseur, May 1972, p. 32.