A GEORGE III STYLE SATINWOOD, ROSEWOOD AND POLYCHROME DECORA...

Estimate

€10,000 - €15,000

A GEORGE III STYLE SATINWOOD, ROSEWOOD AND POLYCHROME DECORATED DEMI-LUNE COMMODE, 19th century, the fan inlaid top with painted floral garland border, above a cupboard door and sides with painted neo-classical roundels in the manner of Angelica Kauffmann, on square tapering legs and spade feet, 93cm high, 127cm wide, 57cm deep Provenance: With Mallett, London; Sold Christie's , New York, 11 October 2007, lot 101 (price realised $34,600 USD); Private collection Literature: D. Nickerson, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1963, p.69, fig. 71. Angelica Kauffman was a Swiss-born neoclassical painter who worked in Rome and London in the mid-late eighteenth century. She identified herself principally as a painter of historical scenes, though her prolific body of work also included portraits and landscapes. Kauffman married Antonio Zucchi in 1781, a Venetian artist who was often employed by Robert Adams, a renowned British architect working in the neoclassical style. Adam’s designs were characterised by their stylistic coherency, with Neoclassical elements reproduced in flat patterns or in low relief, which translated well to the design of neoclassical furniture. There is some debate over the extent to which Kauffman and Adam worked together owing to an absence of extant correspondence or bills between them, however it is accepted that Kauffman did supply him with designs for painted roundels for other artists to follow. Beyond this collaboration, decorative painters clearly continued to integrate her style into elements of neoclassical furniture, affording pieces such as this commode the same lightness of touch and expressiveness that characterised Kauffman’s original works.