Louis XIV Boullework Commode

By Nicolas Sageot (1666-1731, master 1706, active until 1720)

French, circa 1700

Height:  30 1/2 inches (77.5 cm.)
Width:   38 1/4 inches (97 cm.)
Depth:   22 1/2 inches (57.2 cm.)

The commode has a double-bowed front ("en arbalette") and is veneered on all visible surfaces with Boulle-work marquetry in red tortoise shell and brass. Five drawers are arranged in three ranks. On the lower three ranks gilt bronze moldings and bail handles define false double drawer fronts separated by a keyhole mount in the form of a bacchus head. The top rank contains two drawers and the keyhole mount between is a blank. The contoured corner uprights project at angles and terminate in gilt bronze hoof feet. Gilt bronze chutes at the front corners are cast with hunting and musical trophies. The rectangular top features and elaborate Berian-style marquetry with a charioteer on the central platform enclosed by arabesques and flanked by single dancing figures on similarly enclosed platforms. The sides  and drawer fronts have similar arabesques centering on female heads with feathered headdresses.

The identity of Nicolas Sageot, an enormously successful ébéniste who specialized in Boulle-work marquetry in Paris at the turn of 18th century, was established only recently by Pierre Grand ("Le Mobilier Boulle et les ateliers de lépoque" L'Estampille: l'Objet d 'Art, February 1993, pp. 48-70). The marquetry on the top of the present commode repeats that on the top of a desk signed Nicolas Sageot in the Royal Collection, Stockholm , with the single variation of the charioteer in place of a seated figure with children. The same top with yet another central figure is repeated in a three-drawer commode which otherwise replicates the present model (see Grand, figs. 3, 14 and 15). A related commode is in the Wallace Collection (F39).