A LATE LOUIS XV ORMOLU-MOUNTED TULIPWOOD, AMARANTH AND MARQUETRY COMMODE

The charming marquetry scenes which decorate this elegant commode combine classical landscapes with mythological figures. They are found on a group of furniture, which includes the following commode by François Bayer and incorporate panels of stained wood which is often green as well as some ivory or mother-of-pearl inlay as accents. These designs were often based on engraved sources, and Geoffrey de Bellaigue discusses the possibility that a group of specialist marqueteurs would have supplied marquetry panels to marchands-merciers as well as to other ébénistes while large workshops may have had their own specific craftsmen for such work (G. de Bellaigue, 'Ruins in Marquetry', Apollo, January, 1968, pp.12-16 and G. de Bellaigue, 'Engravings and the French Eighteenth-Century Marqueteur', Burlington Magazine, May 1965, pp. 240-250 and July 1965, pp. 356-363).