A LOUIS XIV ORMOLU-MOUNTED, BRASS-INLAID, RED TORTOISESHELL AND BOULLE MARQUETRY COMMODE

The C-couronné poinçon was a tax mark on any alloy containing copper used between March 1745 and February 1749. The presence of this mark on the mounts bordering the drawer fronts suggests that these mounts were in the atelier of a restorer during this period.

The rectilinear shape combined with the projection of the legs (in the manner of late 17th century bureaux) from the main body suggest a date of circa 1700 for this commode. A closely comparable example is in the Wallace Collection and has been attributed to the ébéniste Nicholas Sageot (1666-1731, maître in 1706; P. Hughes, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture, London, 1996, vol. II, pp. 638-43, 137). Sageot is one of the few early 18th-century ébénistes who stamped his work and examples of his oeuvre are in the Swedish Royal Collection, including an armoire, a pair of cabinets and a bureau mazarin (P. Grand, 'Le Mobilier Boulle et les Ateliers de l'Epoque', L'Estampille L'Objet d'Art, February 1993, pp. 55-63). These pieces all share remarkably similar marquetry patterns to those on the present commode and the Wallace commode, and can be related to designs by Jean I Berain (1640-1711). The proliferation of such designs may not always denote Sageot's hand, however, since the marquetry-cutter most frequently associated with his workshop - Toussaint Devoye (active circa 1706-48) - would almost certainly have supplied marquetry to other ébénistes as well (Hughes, op. cit., p. 643).