RO N A L D PHILLIPS
6 A PAIR OF GEORGE III CHINESE LACQUER COMMODES ALMOST CERTAINLY BY JOHN COBB A highly important and exceedingly rare pair of mid 18th century Chippendale period Chinese lacquer commodes, almost certainly by the royal cabinet-maker John Cobb, each having a serpentine shaped top with moulded japanned edge, veneered in exotic Chinese lacquer, above three graduated drawers similarly veneered retaining the original ornate brass handles and escutcheons, the lower drawer with a shaped apron, having shaped sides also veneered in lacquer and keeled angles terminating in carved hoof feet. Note: The drawer linings are made of aromatic cedar, suggesting use for clothes. This is supported by an inscription on the underside of one drawer stating ‘Lord Shaftsbury’s [sic] New Dressingroom’. The 4th Earl of Shaftesbury, a patron of the arts, commissioned furniture from leading London workshops in the latest fashion. His first wife Susannah was a subscriber to Chippendale’s first edition of The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker’s Director. John Cobb took over the London premises of William Hallett, who worked alongside Cobb for Lord Shaftesbury. Decidedly French in outline, the commodes relate to other work by Cobb. Having been trained in the workshop of Giles Grendey, who was renowned for the use of japanning in furniture making, Cobb would have been very familiar with exotic finishes. English, circa 1765 Height: 38¼ in; 97 cm Width: 48¼ in; 122.5 cm Depth: 26 in; 66 cm Provenance: Supplied to the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury for St. Giles House, Dorset, by descent until 1999; Pelham Galleries Ltd., London; Private collection, New York. Exhibited: Royal Academy of Arts, London, English Taste in the Eighteenth Century exhibition, 1955; one of the pair. Illustrated: Margaret Jourdain, ‘St. Giles House, Dorsetshire’, Country Life, 13 March 1915, p. 337, and 20 March 1915, p. 375. Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, revised edition, 1954, vol. II, p. 114, fig. 12. Royal Academy of Arts, London, English Taste in the Eighteenth Century exhibition catalogue, 1955, p. 38, fig. 245; one of the pair. Anthony Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, 1968, illus. 336.
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