Description
Attributed to William Vile and John Cobb, circa 1760-65 The brass-rimmed serpentine top with central oval inlay and green-stained line-inlaid borders over a conforming case with a pair of shaped doors and shaped apron centered by a central oval panel of figured mahogany framed at the top and sides by palmette clasps and enclosing four mahogany-lined drawers with lacquered brass handles, the sides similarly inlaid with palmette-clasped ovals, with foliate and scroll-cast angle mounts continuing to bellflower-cast chutes and pierced foliate sabots, the top corrected for warping 331/2in. (85cm.) high, 43in. (109cm.) wide, 221/2in. (57cm.) deep PROVENANCE Acquired by Eric Moller, Esq. for Thorncombe Park, Surrey, or his brother Ralph for White Lodge, near Newmarket, Suffolk under the advice of R.W. Symonds. Anonymous Sale, Sotheby's London, 17 November 1989, lot 84 (œ110,000). With Partridge (Fine Arts) Ltd., London, illustrated in Partridge, Summer Edition, 1990 no. 17, pp. 48-50). Acquired from Hotspur Ltd., London. LITERATURE R.W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England, London, 1955, pp.113-114, pl.167-168. The Connoisseur, September 1954 (advertisement for R.W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England ). NOTES This elegant pier-commode, conceived in the George III 'French' picturesque manner was designed to be placed beneath a gilded pier glass. Such 'French' style commodes embellished with ormolu mounts began to make their appearance in fashionable English drawing-rooms and most appropriately bedrooms in the 1760s. Their ornament was partly inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses concerning loving deities. The commode's top is serpentined with cupid-bow front wrapped by a golden reed that evokes Pan's Arcadian paradise. Love's target is recalled with rayed parquetry on the 'Roman-mosaic' top issuing from a beribboned Roman-medallion cartouche of marble-figured mahogany. Its scallop-fretted facade and sides display similar targets flowered with triumphal palms in cartouches of husk-festooned Roman acanthus that are tied at the frame, while the angles are festooned with golden husks issuing from flowered cartouches and terminate in scrolled whorls of Roman foliage. THE ATTRIBUTION TO ROYAL CABINET-MAKERS WILLIAM VILE AND JOHN COBB The commode displays many of the characteristics found in the work of the Royal Cabinet-Makers William Vile (d. 1767) and John Cobb. The luminescent quality of the timber within the oval frames, the crisply-carved details and the use of clasped ovals all relate to examples attributed to this celebrated partnership. Vile trained with, and was financed by, the cabinet-maker William Hallett when he came into partnership with Cobb. Hallett's influence is clearly discerned in the work of his disciple, particularly in the use of foliated ovals. A pair of commodes supplied to Sir Francis Dashwood at Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire (now in the Jon Gerstenfeld collection; illustrated in E. Lennox-Boyd, ed., Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, p.192, no.3) and another supplied to the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury, St. Giles's House, Dorset (illustrated in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, New York, 1968, pl.9) feature such ovals. Hallett is documented as working at both houses and has been ascribed authorship of both these pieces. The single stylistic trait of a foliated oval must be treated with caution as other cabinet-makers also used this device, including Benjamin Goodison (on a table press supplied to Holkham in 1757) and John Linnell (note a design illustrated in H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, New York, 1980, vol.II, p.10, fig.16). Furthermore, one must consider the contribution of Vile and Cobb's specialist carver John Bradburne (d.1781), who succeeded Vile as Royal Cabinet-Maker to George III upon the latter's retirement in 1764 (Cobb was duly dismissed at this time). Similarly embellished commodes of more monumental form include one sold by the late Mark Hellyer, Esq., Christie's London, 9 July 1992, lot 158 (illustrated in A. Coleridge, ibid, p.212, fig.389) and a pair from the collection of H.J. Joel, Childwickbury, Hertfordshire, Christie's house sale, 15 May 1978, lot 68, both of which draw affinities with Vile's stylistic traits and Bradburne's own documented furniture, notably a commode supplied to Buckingham Palace in 1770. While the Vile/Cobb partnership was long-lasting, the lightness of form and ornamentation conceived in a more neoclassical fashion suggest a date around the time the firm was supplying furniture to King George III and Queen Charlotte's State Apartments at Buckingham Palace from 1761-1765. Many of these Royal examples again prominently display the oval motifs, notably on Queen Charlotte's jewel cabinet and her secretaire cabinet, both supplied in 1761 (see A. Coleridge, op.cit, pl.12 and 13). However, the unusual anthemion clasp displayed here is apparently unique and reflects the earliest stirrings of English Neo-Classicism grafted onto a Rococo form. The classicism of this commode also recalls the 1763-1764 commission undertaken by Vile and Cobb for Lord Coventry at Croome Court as supervised by the architect/designer Robert Adam and employing the specialist carver Sefferin Alken (G. Beard, 'Vile and Cobb, eighteenth-century London furniture makers', The Magazine Antiques, June 1990, p.1399 and 1045, pl.IX, fig.2). The most compelling argument for a Vile/Cobb attribution are the stylistic and contruction features that are also exhibited on later work executed by Cobb after Vile retired. Stylistically, this piece shares the same serpentine outline and distinctively shaped apron, the seamless joining of the doors without interruption to the facade, a large central oval to the top, front and sides (although usually executed in marquetry throughout) and ormolu-rimmed top. From a construction standpoint, the feet are distinctively formed from V-shaped additions that extend from the elongated stiles. These constructional and stylistic characteristics feature on a group discussed by Lucy Wood in her Catalogue of Commodes, Woodbridge, 1994, group 7, pp.88-97. It would appear that various cabinet-makers employed the ormolu mounts found on this commode and therefore this does not assist with an attribution. In France, this angle-mount was much used by Joseph Baumhauer (maŒtre circa 1749), for example on a bureau plat illustrated in P. Kjellberg, Le Mobilier Fran‡ais du XVIIIe SiŠcle, Paris, 1987, p.454. In England, the same mount appears on a group of yew-wood and marquetry commodes attributed to Mayhew and Ince such as another commode from the Moller Collection (illustrated opposite this commode in R.W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England, London, 1955, fig.166); a pair of commodes from Langford Grove and Thrumpton Hall, sold Christie's London, 3 July 1997, lot 97; a pair of smaller commodes sold from the collection of Mrs. Derek Fitzgerald, Sotheby's London, 5 July 1963, lot 156 and another pair sold by Thomas Ernest Inman, Esq., Christie's London, 29 November 1979, lot 102. Examples of its use by other makers includes the pair of commodes from Blaise Castle, Bristol, which were sold from the Messer Collection, Christie's London, 5 December 1991, lot 117. It was also used on a pair of marquetry commodes, probably made by a German immigrant in England, and sold from the collection of the late Sir Michael Sobell, Christie's London, 23 June 1994, lot 169. The most glamorous use of the model is on a pair of commodes that was supplied under the direction of James Cullen for the State Apartment at Hopetoun House, Edinburgh (see A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, fig.416). THE MOLLER COLLECTION This commode once formed part of the remarkable collections assembled by two brothers, Eric and Ralph Moller, under the guidance of Robert Wemyss Symonds. Eric Moller's years as a collector began in 1943, when he and his new wife moved to Thorncombe Park in Surrey. He restored the house and filled it with an outstanding collection of furniture and clocks, a large proportion of which was sold at Sotheby's London, 18 November 1993. His brother, Ralph, likewise sought the advice of Symonds when forming his collection at White Lodge near Newmarket. Symonds devoted the greater part of his life to the study of English furniture, establishing himself as perhaps the greatest living authority on the subject. The author of some 600 books and articles, with a personal archive of several thousand photographs, he was widely consulted by private collectors and museums. In addition to the Mollers, Symonds advised such celebrated collectors as Percival Griffiths, J.S. Sykes, Geoffrey Blackwell, Jim Joel, Samuel Messer and Lord Plender, also working in the United States, where he played a vital consultative role in the formation of the collection at Colonial Williamsburg With his background in architecture, Symonds was able to advise on the arrangement of furniture, as well as the selection of individual pieces, and took an almost curatorial approach to the collections he helped to form, carefully guiding their development and display. It is clear that he took particular pride in the Moller collection, for he used it as the basis for his 1955 classic Furniture-Making in 17th and 18th Century England in which this commode is illustrated prominently. Symonds writes: 'The circular panel on the front and the oval panels on the sides are veneered with finely figured mottled mahogany. The surrounds to the panels are veneered with strongly marked straight grained wood...But the graceful serpentine shape of the commode supplies the main interest' . Symonds's admiration for this piece is apparent as he uses it to advertise the publication of the book, a very high accolade among a treasury of masterpieces.
