Commode "d'entre deux" Régence

Rare small chest of drawers in sauteuse from the Régence period attributable to Hédouin.
Curved on all sides, it opens to two drawers and is topped with a Royal Red marble from Hautmont that follows its contours. Built on a frame of fir, covered with a veneer of rosewood inlaid with leaves in frames, with herringbone on the front, with diamond curls on the sides, it presents particularly elegant curves and curves.
Darkened with brass flutes, two horizontal ones centered on the intermediate crosspieces and two vertical ones placed on each of the uprights, it is adorned with an ornamentation of chiseled and gilded bronzes of very beautiful quality: draw knobs with rosettes, entries of lock, angle falls with feminine masks and slipper shoes.

The frame is made of fir wood, as was the custom of the master cabinetmakers throughout the Regency period, with a drawer assembly known as "bottom crawling" on all sides (remember that the rebated or recessed assembly, typical of the Parisian masters, is a sign of careful manufacturing, and that it provides the advantage of sliding the entire drawer on a floor over the entire surface of its bottom, making it unnecessary to install runners and thus sparing any risk of wear on the edges of intermediate crosspieces in the long term).

This small chest of drawers is fully in line with the Regency style, a period of transition during which flexibility and symmetry will set the tone, and thus perfectly between the rigor of Louis XIV and the exuberance of Louis XV. Its front and side curves are not very pronounced, its feet are still restrained, its crosspieces are cut into delicate arches, everything here is a perfect illustration of the transition between the two great styles of French furniture.

We can attribute it to the cabinetmaker Jean-Baptiste Hédouin because of a large number of similarities with models bearing this stamp: corpus of small commodes of entre-deux en sauteuse in the manner of Etienne Doirat, generally in rosewood veneer, of an excellent quality of manufacture but with less sumptuous bronzes (although some of them make here exception by their quality), marbles of Flanders, handles of pulling in button and especially the presence of a single groove on the amounts. Our chest of drawers does not bear a stamp, but its absence could easily be explained by Hédouin's active collaboration with haberdashery merchants.

To learn more about the cabinetmaker Hédouin:
https://www.anticstore.com/ebeniste/hedouin-jean-baptiste

To learn more about the Royal Red marble :
https://www.marbrek.com/Photos_rouge_griotte_belge.html


The chest of drawers, of very beautiful workmanship, is in a superb original condition, in its integrity of veneer, (almost no grafts), still adorned with its original bronzes and its two old iron locks. The marble, undoubtedly XVIIIth, is very probably also original.


Perfectly restored and re-varnished by our cabinetmaker.


Parisian work from the end of the Régence period or the very beginning of the Louis XV.