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Commode with marble top
ca. 1750
Artwork Viewer
Though Chinese lacquer had existed for millennia, it was only beginning in the sixteenth century that European traders began to return from travels with prized examples. By the eighteenth century, rising demand for Chinese lacquer spurred European imitation formulas, including the material known as vernis Martin, a mixture of gold or bronze with green varnish seen here on the side panels. Real and imitation lacquers were often combined by taste-defining dealers to produce entirely new luxury commodities like this serpentine cabinet. One of the finest surviving examples, it frames lacquer panels depicting landscapes with flowering acanthus-shaped gilt bronze mounts that mark the object as unabashedly French.
- Maker
- Jean Desforges
- Title
- Commode with marble top
- Date
- ca. 1750
- Place of Creation
- Paris
- Object Type
- Furnishing
- Medium
- Japanese lacquer panels and gilt-bronze mounts, and marble
- Dimensions
- 34 3/8 x 53 x 23 1/4 in. (87.3 x 134.6 x 59.1 cm)
- Credit Line
- Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Collection
- Accession Number
- 53.29.1a-b