Date: 1740-1760, with later alterations

Dimensions: 32 3/4 x 51 3/8 x 25 in. (83.2 x 130.5 x 63.5 cm.)

Medium: oak and pine carcass veneered with tulipwood; gilt-bronze mounts; griotte rouge marble top.

Credit Line: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Adele S. Browning Memorial Collection, gift of Mildred Browning Green and Honorable Lucius Peyton Green

Object Number: 78.20.61

Label Text: Although many features of this commode originate in the eighteenth century, it has been substantially transformed. The construction of the doors suggests a later date, and there are many anomalies in the parquetry veneers, which suggest a history of transformation rather than a nineteenth-century date of manufacture. These veneers, common to Parisian furniture of the 1730s to 1750s (by makers such as Mathieu Criaerd, 1689-1776) may have undergone profound changes, either transferred from another piece of eighteenth-century furniture or reused on this one. The differences between the geometric patterns on the sides and the doors imply that the front and interior were altered, possibly from a series of drawers to a shelf behind doors. The double cross-banding that divides three tiers of quadrillages parquetry on each door might once have divided three drawer fronts original to the commode. The gilt-bronze mounts and the marble top have also been changed.