Alfred-Emmanuel-Louis Beurdeley Commode Paris, circa 1877

bois de violette, satiné, ébène, and portor des Pyrenées marble top, one spring-released drawer, one shelf, the female mask gilt-bronze mount has been removed to reveal the BY mark from the bronze master model.

1878 Paris Universal Exhibition

A. Quantin, L’Art Moderne à L’Exposition de 1878, 1879, pl. 26, and discussed p. 401

D. Ledoux-Lebard, Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle, pp. 75-82

C. Payne, 19th Century European Furniture, pp. 33-34

A. Pradère, French Furniture Makers, p. 340, fig. 398

P. Arizzoli-Clémentael, Versailles, Furniture of the Royal Palace 17th and 18th Centuries, Vol. II, p. 99

The present commode is strongly based on the original pair made by Jean-François Leleu (1729-1807), reçu maître en 1764, delivered on May 1, 1773 for the bedchamber of the Duchesse de Bourbon in Paris. In Leleu accounts for the Palais Bourbon for the years of 1772 and 1773, the cabinetmaker " the said commodes veneered, the friezes with amaranth, black and white stringing, the side panels in mosaic of shaded fleurs-de-lys; the front in blue wood: in the center are two lozenges with toothed mouldings and fleur de lys motif, all shaded." It is interesting to note that the central lozenge, originally veneered with a fleur-de-lys, a motif particularly associated with the French monarchy, was removed during the French Revolution in (1789-1799). The commode is now in the permanent collection of the Musée de Versailles (inv. P. T. 6417).