A commode or chest of drawers, with two long drawers with two narrower drawers above, separated by a blank panel. The commode is veneered in kingwood on a carcase ofoak, pine and walnut, with extensive mounts of gilt brass, the top set with a slab of dark purplish red marble (campan melangé). The commode is raised on short legs, cast in one piece with the front corner mounts, and in the form of double cloven hooves on each side.

A commode or chest of drawers, with two long drawers with two narrower drawers above, flanking a blank panel. The commode is veneered in kingwood on a carcase of oak softwood and walnut, with extensive mounts of gilt brass, the top set with a slab of dark purplish red marble (campan melangé). The commode is raised on short legs, cast in one piece with the front corner mounts (with plain feet at the back), and in the form of double-hooves on each side.

Design
The commode has two long drawers with two narrower drawers above. The top two drawers and the blank panel between them are disguised as a single drawer, matching the other two, with a very narrow drawer between two larger ones. These three are enclose by a gilt-brass frame, matching the frame on the two lower drawers. These frames are of plain mouldings, set with shell-like motifs at the corners.

The bail drawer handles (two to each long drawer, one each to the outer drawers at the top) are twisted, with a mask cast on the knop at the centre of each. Each is attached to the commode via two paterae or rosettes, the rosettes of oak leaves and acorns. The keyhole escutcheons (blind on the central, topmost drawer) are complex, cartouches, each flanked by two sphinxes and with a corona-like cresting that includes the keyhole itself. There are two additional escutcheons above the centre of the handle on each of the outer, upper drawers. These escutcheons are of a simpler design, with a leafy scrolling outline, the keyholes set within beaded ovals.

Two very distinctive gilt-brass mounts run up the length of the commode's front corner edges. These each have two cloven hoofs at their bases, a single flower on a pierced scroll at their tops, and a floral and foliate design along their length, which is in the form of an inverted console. The mounts play more than a purely decorative function: the front of the case is supported on their feet, resting on a curve on the inside face of the mount.

Attached to each side of the commode is a large gilt-brass handle with a gilt-brass mount above it. Three gilt-brass acanthus leaves, two at the top and one at the bottom, adorn the outward-facing side of each back leg.

There is a gilt-brass mask in the centre of the shaped apron, flanked on either side by pierced mounts with horizontally-spreading sprays of flowers (these appear to have been designed to be seen vertically rather than horizontally.

Construction
The commode has a carcase of softwood and oak, and is built as a dovetailed box. The case top is made from softwood and oak planks, the case back is of softwood planks and has been painted black (an addition of the 19th century). The drawers are constructed from walnut, with softwood fronts and a purplewood veneer along their top edge. The front, sides and legs of the commode are entirely veneered with a complicated parquetry pattern, in kingwood. The marble slab is campan mélangé, a French marble from the Pyrénées.

Bequeathed by John Jones

This commode was bequeathed to the Museum as part of the John Jones collection, in 1882. John Jones was a military tailor who made his fortune outfitting the British army. When he died, he left the South Kensington Museum a very large collection of French 18th-century decorative and fine art, including an important group of furniture.

The commode's provenance before entering Jones' collection is not known, and it has not yet been firmly attributed to any particular cabinet-maker. Two historians have suggested that it may have been made in the workshop of Andre-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), cabinet-maker to Louis XIV, but there is no definitive evidence to support this.

Regardless of whether or not it originated with Boulle, the commode was clearly made in an important Parisian workshop, as evidenced by the fineness of its construction, marquetry and mounts.

In 1956 Pierre Verlet published a commode on tall legs, with similar drawer mounts, in the collection of the Louvre, in Les Meubles du XVIIIe Siècle (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1956), vol II, pl. I and p. 121. He noted that the backplates cast with acorns and oak leaves had been used by Boulle on the commodes supplied to Louis XIV in 1708-9 for his bedroom at the Trianon. It seems likely that the model was used exclusively by Boulle. The Louvre commode (inv. no. OA 9305) is illustrated and discussed in Daniel Alcouffe et al., Furniture Collections in the Louvre (Paris, Editions Faton, 1993) vol. I, p. 107.

In 1962 the firm of Berendt (Antiques) Ltd, London, showed at the C.I.N.O.A International Art Treasures Exhibition at the V&A a pair of commodes (No. 164, plate 119 in the catalogue) with very similar framing and corner mounts to the drawers and somewhat similar bail handles, set against rich kingwood parquetry. That pair of commodes were recorded as coming from the collection of the Earl of Bantry, Bantry House, Co. Cork.

A low cupboard (bas d'armoire) with two doors, one of a pair in the Bibliothèque Mazarin, Paris in 1967, had identical front corner mounts, with the same pairs of cloven hooves. Other mounts on that piece are equally rich but do not relate to the other mounts of the commode. This was illustrated by Pierre Verlet in French Furniture and Interior Decoration of the Eighteenth Century (London: Barrie and Rockcliff, 1967) fig. 128, p. 162.

Several reproductions of this commode are known, made in the later 19th century by the Paris workshop of Paul Sormani, whose workshops were established at 10 rue Charlot from 1867. They continued until 1934 under the management of his widow and his son and were noted for close copies of 18th-century furniture. One copy was offered for sale by Sotheby's New York, 25 October 1996, lot 183, another (or possibly the same one) offered by Sotheby New York 16 May 1997, lot 136. By that time the piece was dated to about 1890, suggesting that it was made when the workshops were under the management of his widow. Further versions (or a re-offering of the same pieces) were offered by Sotheby's New York 28 October 1998, lot 282, 15 June 2002 and 27 April 2006. This commode was not, however, one of the pieces of French furniture from the South Kensington Museum collections (now the V&A collections) of which measured drawings were published by W.G. Paulson Townsend in parts from 1899.

The commode was a decorative form of furniture which developed in France in the late 17th-century. Essentially a decorative chest of drawers, commodes became one of the most prestigious and fashionable pieces of furniture in the 18th-century European interior. French commodes typically stood between windows, usually underneath a mirror. They would often have a marble top that matched the chimney-piece, and their sides were usually richly decorated with either marquetry or lacquer panels.

This commode is a very fine example of a type that started to be made in around 1710, in which a marble slab replaced a tradional marquetry top. The geometrical decoration on the commode would also have been high fashion in the early 18th-century - representing a trend away from floral marquetry.

Commodes, essentially decorative chests of drawers, were a form of furniture developed in France in the late 17th-century. The commode went on to become one of the most important and prominent objects in the 18th-century European interior. This is a very fine example of an early 18th-century French commode. Clearly made in an important Paris workshop, it is at the height of fashion for about 1715 - showcasing the geometric marquetry and marble top that were newly-fashionable in the period. The decorative elements on the commode were designed to have maximum effect on the room in which it was placed. The shimmering surfaces of the commode's marquetry would have been picked out by its elaborate and very finely chased mounts, resulting in a rich object that could have manipulated the effects of light and reflection in an early 18th-century French interior.

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