A Louis XV/XVI Transitional style gilt-bronze mounted kingwood and marquetry commode, circa 1830-40, by Edward Holmes Baldock, after Pierre-Antoine Foullet

Farquhar Family, Whiteway House, Devon, until 1967;

Thence by descent at Redlynch House, Wiltshire, until recently.

The model

This commode has the typical boxy form, breakfront silhouette, decorative apron and cabriole legs of models made during the so-called ‘Transition’ period between the fulsome Rococo style and the coolly rectilinear Neoclassical style. More specifically, its decoration relates to the work of Pierre-Antoine Foullet (1732–1780), but this is actually a faithful copy made some sixty years later by the English cabinetmaker Edward Holmes Baldock.

There are several commodes of this type that are stamped by Foullet, who was received as master in 1765 – the best-documented one is probably the example delivered to Versailles on New Year’s Even of 1768 for the bedroom of madame Victoire, daughter of Louis XV. That example, which is on display in Versailles today (OA 10586), features the central oval-form marquetry panel with a gilt-bronze border that imitates a picture frame, playing on the idea that a marquetry panel was like a ‘painting in wood’. It also has the perfume burner issuing wisps of fragrance, a classical motif that is seen on almost all Foullet commodes of this type. Other commodes of this form stamped Foullet are at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (2014.136.360), the Huntington¹ and Fredriksborg Castle in Denmark.² Those models have rectangular side panels instead of oval-shaped ones, though some examples stamped Foullet have appeared at auction that also have oval shaped panels.³

Edward Holmes Baldock (1777–1845) was a close observer of such important royal furniture as the Foullet group detailed above, and he tended to mimic the practices of French ébénistes by using an EHB stamp on pieces the pieces that he created in the French style.⁴ His close copies of ancien régime furniture are often of considerably high quality at a time when this was more of a novelty than it would become later in the nineteenth century. Close observation of Foullet models that have three oval panels like the present lot show that none has marquetry that matches exactly, since those with floral decoration tend to include a basket or vase. This suggests that the floral arrangement can be considered Baldock’s original contribution to the original model created a decade before he was born.

¹ S. M. Bennett and C. Sargentson, French Art of the Eighteenth Century at The Huntington, New Haven, 2008, cat. 24, pp.98-100. Note that the Foullet example is grouped with almost identical examples stamped by Rübestück and Charpentier.

² See S. Eriksen tr. P. Thornton, Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974, pl.132.

³ See Sotheby’s New York, 4 May 1984, lot 65; Christie’s London, 3 December 2014, lot 15 and  Christie’s London, 14 December 2022, lot 58.

⁴ D. Davis, The Tastemakers: British Dealers and the Anglo-Gallic Interior, 1785-1865, Los Angeles, 2020, p.169

The Farquhar family

This clock and commode (lots 104 and 105) originate from the significant collection assembled by the Farquhar family of Whiteway House, Devon. The house was first occupied by Ernest Farquhar (1853–1930), but it is possible that the presence of these artworks in the family could go back to Sir Thomas Harvie Farquhar, 2nd Baronet (1775–1836), partner of Herries, Farquhar & Co., a private bank famous for pioneering circular notes (an early form of the traveller’s cheque) and for becoming a major financier to the British aristocracy, and first founded in 1770.

During the Napoleonic wars, despite the difficulties, business abroad continued since Herries, Farquhar & Co. had the privilege of transacting some overseas business on behalf of the Duke of Wellington.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the bank invested in French bonds, reportedly establishing connections with Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (later Emperor Napoleon III). According to family tradition, the deposed Emperor was initially accommodated by the Farquhar family at their Eaton Square residence in London.

The collection remained at Whiteway House for three generations, with one notable exception: during the First World War, when Whiteway served as a recovery hospital, the collection was temporarily relocated for safekeeping to the Victoria and Albert Museum's ancillary location in Bethnal Green. The family sold Whiteway in 1967, and these pieces moved with them to Redlynch House near Salisbury where it remained until recently.