Restoration of a Louis XVI period provincial commode. Constructed of softwood and oak, and veneered with violet wood, rosewood, sycamore maple, boxwood, ebony, and stained maple. At its center is a bucolic scene depicting a card game between two women and a man watching from between two trees. In the background, a house and a church are visible. The entire scene is framed by a medallion of flowers engraved and colored with black and red wax. The two lower drawers are framed by a frieze depicting a ribbon wrapped with the same engraved flowers. The upper drawer is veneered with faux fluting of boxwood and ebony.
State of affairs report
The structure was severely deteriorated. All the joints had come loose, and the chest of drawers was completely unstable. The side panels were detached from the legs. The veneer glue was badly dehydrated, and there were some gaps. The top, bottom, back, and middle panels had been replaced with plywood.
The Restoration
In order to replace the plywood elements with new fir pieces, the chest of drawers had to be disassembled. This was a fairly simple operation, as the joints were in poor condition: broken tenons, splintered tenon cheeks, etc. All the plywood backs were therefore restored in oxidized fir and stained on the surface, while retaining a new appearance with traces of mechanical tools so that they could be easily dated on the reverse side.
The sides were re-glued and all veneered surfaces were rehydrated by vacuum infiltration of glue. The veneer grafts were made using sawn, scraped, sanded veneer cut to the correct thickness as a backing before being glued with mammalian hide glue.
The old varnish was then slightly thinned and reworked with pumice and alcohol. A colorless French polish was then applied. The bronzes were cleaned with a steam jet.
For traditional work