A RESTAURATION ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY AND BARDIGLIO MARBLE COMMODE À L'ANGLAISE

It is very difficult to attribute the advent of the commode a l'anglaise to one particular marker. This model was prolific in the late 18th century, were executed by revered ebenistes such as Jean-Henri Reisner, Claude Saunier, and perhaps most notably Adam Weisweiler. This style of commode also relates to the models supplied by the celebrated marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre. Daguerre specialized in supplying objets de luxe to the French Court and, after the Revolution, to the English nobility. In 1786, Daguerre signed an exclusive agreement with Josiah Wedgwood to sell Wedgwood's jasperware in France, and in the following year he was commissioned to supply the furnishings for George, Prince of Wales at Carlton House under the direction of Henry Holland.

Opening a shop in Piccadilly, Daguerre was patronized by, amongst others the Duke of York, Lady Holderness, the 5th Duke of Bedford and the 2nd Earl Spencer. This latter commission included a pair of consoles desserte, described in Daguerre's bill of 31 May 1791 as 'Deux Consoles en Bois d'acajou avec tablettes de marbre entre les Pieds, garni de frieze mouleur et autres Bronzes doré d'or moulu, les Dessus en marbre Blanc à 960 - 1920 livres' executed by the ébéniste Claude-Charles Saunier. Another example supplied by Weisweiler was delivered in 1788 to the Cabinet Intérieur du Roi at Saint-Cloud (illustrated in P. Lemonnier, Weisweiler, Paris, 1983, p. 133).