A Fantastic Quality Mid 19th Century Gilt Bronze Mounted Louis XVI Style Mahogany Commode By Hippolyte-Edme Pretot

$95,000 Hippolyte-Edme Pretot A marble top above a frieze applied with scrolling-vine mounts and fronted by two drawers centered by a lion’s mask and oak branches, the cupboard doors with a central panel set with a bronze plaque depicting Ceres within a demi lune frame filled with arabesque scrolling vine. Stamped Pretot to each of the top corners of the carcass, under the marble top. The design of the present commode relates closely to that of a pair adapted by Guillaume Benneman from a model by Joseph Stöckel supplied to Marie-Antoinette in 1786 for the Salon des Jeux at Fontainebleau. Copied in widely varying degrees of quality throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the present example of Stöckel and Benneman’s model exhibits the high level of execution and finish associated with the finest quality pieces. The Ebeniste Hippolyte-Edme Pretot (1812-1855) was a Paris born cabinet-maker established at 16, rue de l’Abbaye in 1836; 11, bis, rue Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1841; and from 1846 at 3 & 5 rue de Harlay. He specialised in Boulle furniture exhibiting at the Exposition Nationale in 1849 and at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London where he won a medal for a collection of hard stone inlaid furniture. Details: Height – 36 inches / 91cm Width – 55 inches / 140cm Depth – 25 inches / 64cm