A commode of bombé form, with serpentine top, ornamented with marquetry in several woods. It has three drawers, veneered overall with a shaped panel containing flowers, set against a trellised ground, with a broad framing of green-stained veneer, set with oval medallions of heads at the corners.

A marquetry commode of bombé form (with a bowed front), the serpentine top echoed by the more elaborately serpentine front apron and simple serpentine side aprons. It has three drawers veneered sans traverse(with the design continuing over all the drawers) and is fitted with lacquered brass mounts.

The top is decorated with a basket of flowers on a sycamore(?) ground, within a rococo cartouche, flanked on either side by parquetry panels that are shaped to follow the serpentine outline of the top. This composition is framed by two wide cross-banded borders - the inner border in green-stained sycamore(?), decorated with trailing branches, scrolling cross-banded strapwork, and with profile busts in medallions at each corner; the outer border in diagonally banded kingwood(?), edged with a plain brass moulding.

The front, comprising the three drawer-fronts, is decorated to echo the top - but with a ribbon-tied bouquet of flowers instead of a basket of flowers - and fitted with rococo escutcheons and apron mount, and classical bail handles (the handles replaced). XRF analysis could not confirm traces of gold and we must conclude that the mounts are of polished and lacquered brass. The sides are decorated more simply with bouquets of flowers, on a sycamore(?) ground and with two cross-banded borders echoing the treatment of the top and front. The front uprights are fitted with rococo angle-mounts, emphasizing the rococo form.

The marquetry is enhanced by staining and a filler to the engraving (probably mastic) to give it more pictorial realism. The green stain surviving in the inner cross-banding and in several details is an indication that originally it would have been stained with a variety of colours (most of which fade from exposure to light). The engraving on the marquetry has been largely re-worked but the original engraving still survives faintly in places, underneath and between the more recent engraving.

The pine carcase has four thick uprights at the corners, to which the rest of the frame is glued, with a narrow edge joint. The back and the top are of framed panel construction, but the bottom and sides are made of boards. The substrate of the sides consists of 4-5 sections of wood that are either butt-jointed or joined with tongue-and-groove joints. The outer ones are glued to the uprights either with a tongue-and-groove joint or they are set in a rebate. The drawer dividers supporting the drawers are joined to the uprights by simple through-dovetail housings. The drawers run on rails that are tenoned into the drawer dividers at the front and into the back. When the drawers are pulled forward they are guided by strips of woods to their side and top.

The drawers are made with pine fronts, in short sections, laid like bricks. This enables the curved front to be cut out with the least exposure of endgrain timber, which ensures that the marquetry, when glued down, sticks much more evenly to the substrate. The back and sides of the drawers are of oak, the drawers dovetailed together at the front and back corners. The drawer-bottoms, made of oak boards grained from front to back, are housed in grooves in the front and sides and nailed up to the back.

The carcase has been extensively repaired, as have the drawer runners, although the drawers have been repaired to a lesser extent.

Purchased with Art Fund support

This commode was sold from Hagley Hall in 1950. It is not known if it was part of the indigenous contents of Hagley or if it was accquired to refurnish the house after the fire of 1925.

It has long been noted that this commode shows some similarities with German marquetry of the mid-eighteenth century and the border in green-stained sycamore, with its profile heads in ovals can be paralleled in work from the German centres of cabinet making.

The shape of the commode is identical to one formerly at Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire, except that that commode showed two drawers at the top (possibly a later adaptation). The Doddington commode, which has simpler floral marquety, was sold by Bonhams 19th October 2011, lot 98, where it was attributed to Henry Hill of Marlborough, who has also been suggested as the maker of the V&A commode. The Doddington commode is likely to have been made for Sir John Hussey Delaval Bt (later Baron Deleval) and Lucy Wood has written about Henry Hill's work for that commission (see references below). The corner mounts of the two commodes appear to be identical, but there are slight differences in the handles and the keyhole escutcheons are different. Lucy Wood, writing in the Bonhams' catalogue entry, suggested that the Doddington commode could have come from Hill's workshop and notes the similarities to the V&A commode. It seems likely that both came from Hill's workshop, with considerable input from a cabinet maker who trained in the German states.

This commode was at one time thought to be German, but more recently it has been suggested that it was made in Britain by an immigrant (German) cabinetmaker. Its swelling, bombé shape, the style of the marquetry, and certain features of the construction are very Germanic, but it also closely resembles some commodes that appear to have been made in Marlborough, Wiltshire, in the workshop of a cabinet-maker named Henry Hill. Other pieces from Hill’s workshop also show similarities to German furniture, and some have drawers lined with a decorative paper made in Augsburg, so it appears very likely that Hill did employ immigrant craftsmen, possibly from southern Germany.

W.10:1to:5 -1957