A Louis XVI gilt bronze mahogany commode à vantaux, circa 1785, attributed to Bernard Molitor

Born in Luxembourg, Bernard Molitor (1755-1833) was a German cabinetmaker who achieved acclaim in Paris, the artistic and intellectual heart of eighteenth-century Europe. He became one of the last guild masters to serve the French royal family. The restrained elegance of his work, along with his shrewd finances and business acumen, ensured that he remained successful throughout his career despite moments of personal and wider sociopolitical crisis. The revolution was not kind to the majority of ébenistes, as many were faced with changing tastes and the financial strain presented by a lack of court commissions. Most infamously Jean Henri Riesener bankrupted himself by buying back his pieces during the biens nationaux, unable to resell his work at any profit.The ‘fine sobriety’1 demonstrated in Molitor’s ornamentation appealed to the increasing move away from the extravagant tastes of the ancien régime towards the close of the 18th century. This development was in part due to Pierre-Élisabeth de Fontanieu’s departure as head of the Royal Furniture Administration. His successor, Thierry de Ville d’Avray, removed Riesener from the post of cabinet-maker to the king and championed the more sober styles which would come to define revolutionary tastes. Molitor’s adaptability in his furniture design ensured his success with emerging post-Revolutionary fashions.

The present Molitor commode stands an early example of such tastes in its almost architectural elements, featuring long lines and refined ornament. The twentieth-century copy is a fitting tribute to Molitor's design, faithfully reproducing is ornament and form down to the smallest details. An almost identical commode also attributed to Molitor was published in Ulrich Leben’s 1992 catalogue of the ébéniste’s work,2 displaying very similar gilt-bronze mounts and escutcheons. 1 M. Hayot in U. Leben, Molitor, Ebeniste from the Ancien Regime to the Bourbon Restoration, 1992, London, p. 7.2 Ibid., p.182, cat. no. 29B.