The swirling lines of this chest of drawers, accentuated by its convex sides, make this piece of furniture stand out in the broad and often ordinary panorama of items of this kind. The lively pictorial decorations on the front and sides are harmoniously proportional to the whole in size and constitute a continuous narrative rather than a wallpaper kind of ornamentation. Bronze elements decorated with leaves and rushes moulded with darting lightness frame the front, where they converge at the top to form a large Rococo keyplate, and the sides. The bronze mounts on the outer edges of the uprights are more substantial. The commode is a fine and pleasing example of the Louis XV style at the aristocratic, albeit not the royal, level. 

The mother of the future master of Louis XV cabinetmaking had a son by a previous marriage named Noël Gérard, recently rediscovered as one of the most established Parisian ébénistes marchands of the Regency and the early years of Louis XV’s reign.¹ Jacques Dubois (1694-1763, maître 1742) probably worked as a journeyman for Gérard before opening his own workshop. He was already middle-aged when admitted to the guild of cabinetmakers in 1742 and the great success of his business on Rue de Charenton came to an end with his sudden death in 1763. The inventory of his property includes twelve workbenches and 127 pieces of furniture, only four of which are commodes. This suggests that many of the chests of drawers that the great Jacques was commissioned to produce, especially those decorated with chinoiserie, were actually the work of his son René (1737-99, maître 1755), who carried on his father’s business for twenty years under the same estampille or signature mark without having one of his own.² The most numerous items of furniture in the Dubois workshop on his death were occasional tables (21) and desks (10). There were also seven bidets.³ 

The most famous works by Jacques Dubois include the Vergennes bureau plat in the Louvre and the (overly) monumental encoignure, almost three metres tall, in the Getty Museum, Malibu. 

Scholars are unanimous in focusing attention on the rocaille elements of gilded bronze by Jacques Dubois in a style described as “always lyrical, harmonious and highly inventive” with a “syncopated rhythm” created by a series of short stretches of curves and counter-curves. This description applies perfectly to the bronze elements of the Cerruti commode, which can be dated on the basis of its overall stylistic characteristics as no later than 1763, the year when the great Jacques died.⁴ The other piece of furniture stamped Dubois in the Cerruti Collection is a Chinese-style secretary desk with a marble top (see no. 39, p. 1010). 

Roberto Antonetto 

¹ The rediscovery of Gérard is due to Stéphane Boiron. See Boiron 1990, pp. 42-59. See also the lengthy description in Catalogo Artcurial, 9 June 2015, auction no. 2768, lot 42. 

² Kjellberg presents several photographs of commodes and desks varnished and decorated in the Chinese style as works of Jacques (Kjellberg 1989, pp. 267-277). For the question of the estampille R. DUBOIS, see the entry of the mechanical table in the Cerruti Collection (cat. p. 980). 

³ Pradère 1989, p. 169. 

⁴ Attention should also be drawn in this connection to the comment on an important Dubois table auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2001: Sotheby’s, London, Important Continental Furniture & Tapestries, 12 December 2001, lot 43, pp. 90-94.