A Superb Mahogany Commode Attributable to Gillows of Lancaster.

The commode with a serpentine shaped top above four graduating drawers, each retaining their original gilt metal rococco handles and escutcheons.  The canted corners with finely inlaid floral decoration and supported on original shaped bracket feet.  The whole being of wonderful colour and rich patination.

This superb commode or chest can be attributed to the renowned cabinet making firm of Gillows due to the similarity in the inlay to the canted corners.  The primary example of this is seen on the front cover of the seminal work on Gillows by Susan Stuart.  Here she Illustrates the Hutton Rawlinson cabinet.  Although the inlay is not identical, (The Hutton Rawlinson cabinet was a bespoke commission) the same hand can be seen at work. The use of a light-coloured inlay, probably holly with engraved line decoration matches that on the cabinet.  Gillows employed a specialist inlayer named John Norris who may have been responsible for the commode.

Similar inlay can also be seen on a commode illustrated in The Norman Adams Collection, page 371, and on of a chest of drawers from the Collection of the Duke of Dorset. Bonhams, 9.3.16.  lot  98