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

The marqueterie à treillage or trellis-patterned marquetry interspersed with cubes featured on the present commode is characteristic of the transitional period or late 1760s. It was incorporated in the oeuvre of several ébénistes such as Jacques Bircklé, Pierre Roussel, and Jean-Georges Schlichtig.

It is however unquestionably Jean-Chrysostome Stumpff, the German-born ébéniste received maître in 1766, who produced the largest number of pieces featuring such distinctive marquetry pattern. Kjellberg lists no less than nine stamped pieces by Stumpff decorated with these motifs and illustrates a virtually identical commode (with variations only to some mounts and marble top), a bureau plat and a secretaire-à-abattant all featuring this distinctive marquetry (Le Mobilier Français du XVIIIème siècle, Dijon, 1998, pp.826-7).

Although a leitmotif in Stumpff's oeuvre, Kjellberg suggests that he might not have been the originator of this popular design and Kjellberg queries whether it might instead have been the work of the ébéniste or most probably specialist marqueteur C.N. Vallier, recorded to have supplied marquetry to Stumpff and his fellow ébénistes for use on their most accomplished pieces.