Research:
Of mahogany and satinwood. Each with a demi-lune top above a bank of four drawers, the uppermost drawer of shallow depth with a central inlaid fan motif, flanked on both sides by cabinet doors set to the top with dummy drawer fronts of conforming fan design above the main door panels. Each door opening to reveal a cavity containing two shelves. The whole raised on four tapering square legs, each terminating in a block foot.
Provenance:
A Copenhagen Collection
The Danish art of furniture making generally followed European trends in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The architect C.F. Harsdorff (1735–1799), credited with introducing a distinctly Danish style of furniture, studied in Paris and received strong impulses from the neoclassicist movement that translated into ‘à la greque’ pieces of furniture.” Pairs of commodes, of which surviving examples are relatively rare, reflected “the symmetry that had become a guiding principle in all good interior design” and were “found beneath pier glasses in the traditional tripartite division of a room or on either side of a double door.” The present commodes share the preference for “clean contours, with ornamentation restricted to relatively simple and clear motifs.”
Full research report available on request.