Restoration complete for this important and rare commode known as "en tombeau" or "à la Régence" but also "à moustache" from the Régence period, curved on all sides, opening with four drawers in three rows.
Topped with a Belgian Vieux Rance marble (let us recall in passing that at the beginning of the 18th century Rance was a French village) molded with a corbel following its contours, this large commode in a single veneer of violet wood is animated by powerful curves, adorned with brass fluting on the front and sides and covered with an exceptional set of chiseled and gilded bronze fittings: thick drop handles and wide gadrooned rosettes, important cartel keyhole escutcheons, long curved drops with faun masks with bat-wing ears, gadroons, floral drops, plumes and shells, masks with lion muzzles, moustaches (or "crescents") with gadroons and finally a radiating tailpiece.
Falls with a faun mask of this model are rarely encountered, and this is even more true of hooves with a lion mask, which are particularly uncommon. .
The Regency period represents a very short era in the history of decorative arts, specifically from 1715 to 1723. However, "Regency" furniture was certainly made well before and well after this historical period. Regency commodes do not bear a stamp, except in the case of a few pioneering cabinetmakers who signed their pieces with their initials in large letters.
Let us try to clarify the points that distinguish a model of this type from the Regency period and a very similar model, but this time from the Louis XV period:
– First of all, the walnut used for the manufacture of the drawer boxes and the finish of these indicate a work of excellent quality specific to leading cabinetmakers such as Lieutaud, Mallerot, Doirat, Garnier, but also suggests a contemporary date of the Regency.
– There is another major difference which lies in the very construction of the frames, which are assembled with blind dovetail joints on the models of the first third of the 18th century, while they will be assembled with mortise and tenon joints at the end of the 18th century. Thus, during the Regency period, we observe dovetail joints on the edge of the intermediate facade rails and blind dovetail joints for the upper rails, and the attachment between the uprights and the sides will be made in the same way, whereas a little later, it will be made at this point with a flat joint.
Thus, it is likely that cabinetmakers, at least until the Regency period, did not make the chests of their commodes themselves but left this task to specialized manufacturers. This is illustrated here by the simple observation of the veneer on the uprights, which partially covers the intermediate rails (see the detail photograph below), necessarily implying that the veneer was applied to a frame that was already fully assembled.
– Finally, let us add that the presence of a brass flute on the side of the chest of drawers, always at the level of the median between the first and second drawer, is also an element which argues in favour of a manufacture from before 1730.
This chest of drawers, which arrived at the workshop in good condition, underwent conservation restoration. Aside from some veneer re-gluing and a few grafts, the original French polish was preserved and regenerated using a polar eco-solvent before being refinished with a colorless shellac varnish.
