Rare commode dite en sarcophage

Rare sarcophagus chest of drawers, opening with three drawers on three rows, resting on four small cambered legs. The chest of drawers is veneered with violet wood in thread and end wood, applied in frieze and leaf. On the front, this marquetry designs a crossword. It is decorated with gilded and chiselled bronzes in falls decorated with a feathered woman's mask, in the entries to the locks, in the falling handles with horns of plenty, in the back legs with acanthus leaves, in the apron sculpted with acanthus leaves and in the very finely chiselled clogs in the front. The drawers are separated by a brass fluting. The original marble top is a Belgian rancid with a corbin beak moulding around the edge and a cavet above. The frame and drawer fronts are in fir and the inside of the drawers in walnut.
Regency period
Use Restorations, a fall of bronze redorated
H. 90 x W. 128 x D. 67 cm

The chest of drawers we are presenting today is called a "sarcophagus chest". It is a type of chest of drawers that was produced in small quantities at the beginning of the 18th century, shortly after the birth of this piece of furniture. Its form was inherited from the bureau and took its first steps during the reign of Louis XIV. The chest of drawers then became established during the Regency period, and then became the piece of furniture of this century in the same way as the cabinet in the 17th century. There is then the commode known as the tomb chest of drawers, which was widespread in the first third of the 18th century. The sarcophagus chest of drawers is its ancestor, and is much less common. Therefore, the chest of drawers we present is particularly interesting for all collectors of Regency chests of drawers or furniture. Inspired by antique sarcophagi, it has concave and convex drawers in the front.
On the other hand, its marquetry is very appreciable. The lattice pattern is particularly well executed. The violet wood used for the veneer is Dalbergia Cearensis, which comes from Brazil.

To evoke its author, we must study the few sarcophagus chests of drawers that we know, and among those, those that are identified by documents or stamps (not obligatory at that time). Thus, this chest of drawers belongs to a set of furniture probably by the same author. Calin Demetrescu has ruled out a design by Aubertin or Renaud Gaudron and has put forward the hypothesis of a design by Noël Gérard or his entourage.
The small corpus of furniture that we can gather has in common the structure of the case, its original cut, and the recurrent ornamentation of bronzes. Thus, a chest of drawers presented by the Wagner gallery in 1978 at the Biennale was based on the composition of our chest of drawers and a good part of the ornamental bronzes (entrances, drop handles). An almost identical chest of drawers was sold by Couturier and Nicolay on 29 March 2000 in Paris. Of the same size as our commode, with the same bronzes as the Wagner commode, this piece of furniture is stamped by Louis Delaître, who must be the author of the selected corpus.

Sources :
Demetrescu (Calin), Le style Régence, Les éditions de l'Amateur
Verlet (Pierre), Le mobilier français du XVIIIe siècle, Puf