Temple Williams, The Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair,London, 1959
Literature
Rieder, W., ‘More on Pierre Langlois’, The Connoisseur, September 1974, pp. 11-13
Thornton, P. & Rieder, W., ‘Pierre Langlois, Ébéniste. Parts 1-5’, The Connoisseur, December 1971, pp. 283-288; February 1972, pp. 105-112; March 1972, pp. 176-187; April 1972, pp. 260-262, fig. 15; and May 1972, pp. 30-35
Wood, L., ‘New Light on Pierre Langlois (1718-67)’, The Furniture History Soc. Newsletter, No. 196, Nov. 2014
Publications
Coleridge, A., Chippendale Furniture (London: 1968), p. 35, pl. 47
Davis, F., ‘A Page for Collectors: A Forgotten English Cabinet-Maker’, Illustrated London News, 3rd Jan. 1959
Joy, E. T., ‘The Serpentine Line of Grace’, The Connoisseur, Antique Dealers Fair Souvenir Ed., 1959, pp. 72-74
Temple Williams Limited Antiques, Advertisement, Country Life, 4th Dec. 1958
Temple Williams LTD, The Grosvenor House Handbook (London, 1959), p. 96
A George III ormolu-mounted laburnum, Brazilian rosewood, fustic, amaranth and marquetry commode, attributed to Pierre Langlois, the serpentine white marble top inlaid with bands of Spanish brocatelle and anthemia and floral roundels of giallo, rouge griotte, and vert de mer, above four crossbanded drawers inlaid with foliate scrolls, mounted with foliate ormolu handles and centred by cartouche escutcheons above inlaid fleur-de-lys, the sides panels inlaid with fleur-de-lys to each corner and centred by a ribbon-tied husk wreath, above a shaped apron, flanked by keeled stiles headed by rocaille mounts and chutes terminating in outswept feet mounted with scroll toes.
Commodes executed in the French taste were highly popular in England during the 1750s and 1760s. Thomas Chippendale, William Vile and John Cobb, amongst others, are well known for their output of elegant serpentine commodes embellished with finely-worked ormolu mounts and abundant carving.
Yet, leading cabinet-makers at this time did not produce furniture decorated with marquetry. Published designs, such as in Chippendale’s Director, do not feature marquetry. In fact, the designs of his which are embellished with trophies and ribbons, or leafy fronds and vases of flowers he did not intend to be executed in such a medium. Rather, he suggests they should be ‘Brass, or Silver, finely chased and put on; or they may be cut in Filligree-Work, in Wood, Brass, or Silver’. There is no reference to ‘inlaid work’. As far as is known from datable furniture, Chippendale, like other English cabinet-makers, did not adopt marquetry until about 1770.
The fine naturalistic floral marquetry which this commode features points strongly therefore to the hand of Pierre Langlois, a London-born man of Huguenot descent. It is of a type that, new in Paris in 1750, he introduced into England during the 1760s and became famous for. The Seven Years’ War between 1756 and 1763 greatly affected the furniture trade and import of styles from France (with whom Britain was at war) with the result that Langlois, who trained in Paris in the 1740s in the workshop of Jean-François Oeben (credited with developing and refining the foliate marquetry synonymous with Rococo decoration), established this style of marquetry in the late 1750s and early 1760s in England with little competition from France or English cabinet-makers.
Examples of pre circa 1770 floral marquetry furniture attributable to English makers does survive, but it differs in significant ways from Langlois’ work. The 1759-1763 flower and ribbon marquetry bureau en pente at Chewton House, Somerset, for example, features designs inlaid on a light-coloured ground as contrasted to the scorching, strong tonal contrasts and mahogany or rosewood ground which characterise Langlois’ work, as seen on the present commode which features a dark rosewood ground. Similarly, a hallmark of Langlois’ work is the use of diagonal linear striping to form pronounced geometric patterns on the front, sides and top (when of wood) to form the ground for or frame panels of marquetry, as finely exemplified by this commode.
The marquetry motifs themselves also suggests Langlois. Of French origin and having spent his formative years in Paris, Langlois had a penchant (unlikely to be felt by an English cabinet-maker) for placing fleur-de-lys at the corners of marquetry panels. This is a feature of nearly all his work, absent only on articles whose plain style does not permit decoration, and duly the flowers are present in the four corners of the panels on the sides of this commode, as well as on the drawer fronts beneath the escutcheons. The panels are decorated with a central roundel in the form of a wreath of husks and foliate curls, hung by a tied ribbon, also a motif typically seen on Langlois’ work.
The commode’s pronounced ormolu scroll toe mounts closely resemble those on Langlois’ documented commodes produced for the Duke of Bedford for Woburn Abbey in 1760 and the Earl of Coventry for Croome Court in 1764, and his attributed work for Sir Lawrence Dundas and John Chute and in the Royal Collection. Its complex curvilinear form, likely introduced to England by Langlois, also evokes the shape of these documented and attributed commodes and with its curved back-edge is French in character and unlike the more typical vertical edge found on English furniture, again suggesting the authorship of the Paris-trained Pierre Langlois.
Combining elements of both the French Rococo in the foliate handles, C-scroll and cartouche escutcheons, stile and toe mounts and drawer-front marquetry, and the Neoclassical in the symmetrical ribbon-and-husk motifs on the sides, this commode was likely made between 1765 and 1770, the period of transition from rocaille ornament to classical design. Indeed, as the research of Svend Eriksen suggests, the degree of Neoclassicism seen in the commode, signed Daniel Langlois (Pierre’s son), in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the famous pair at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, suggests a date of no earlier than 1770. A date for this commode of 1765-1770, before the time Chippendale, Cobb or Mayhew & Ince took up marquetry decoration and when Langlois was at the height of his powers, leading the production of this type of furniture, supports attribution to him.
The commode is also finished with a black-washed double-panelled back typical of Langlois’ cabinet-making and the interior work too is characteristically neat. The top, being of marble rather than wood, also implies Langlois, the notion of a marble, rather than wooden top, being entirely French and not a design English cabinet-makers executed or apparently even considered in the 1760s.
Following the seminal work on Langlois by P. Thornton and W. Rieder in The Connoisseur in 1971–72, his name has been attributed to numerous pieces of English furniture in the French taste, many likely made by different, still anonymous cabinet-makers. However, with the quality and distinct stylistic features of this commode, there is a strong case for its attribution to the famous Anglo-French cabinet-maker.