Advanced Search 
Commode with corner cupboards (commode a encoignures)
Attributed to: Claude-Charles Saunier (French, 1735–1807)
French (Paris)
Louis XVI
about 1770-80
Medium/Technique
Wood, black Japanese lacquer, gilt-bronze, white marble
Dimensions
H. 33 1/2 in.; W. 48 1/2 in.; D. 18 in.
Measurements of marble: 18 1/8 x 48 7/8 x 7/8
Measurements of commode excluding marble: 35 5/8 x 48 5/16 x 17 1/4
Measurements of marble: 18 1/8 x 48 7/8 x 7/8
Measurements of commode excluding marble: 35 5/8 x 48 5/16 x 17 1/4
Credit Line
Gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild
Accession Number2019.639
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsFurniture – Case furniture and boxes
DescriptionA Louis XVI ormolu-mounted Japanese lacquer side cabinet. The variegated white marble D-shaped top with molded edge above a conforming case with three frieze drawers decorated with scrolling vines and rosettes over a central door, the oval panel with Japanese lacquered landscape scenes and opening to reveal three drawers flanked by two galleried corner shelves, on fluted round tapering legs ending in sabots.
ProvenanceBy 1938, Alphonse de Rothschild (b. 1878 – d. 1942) and Clarice de Rothschild (b. 1894 – d. 1967), Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild by Nazi forces (no. AR 151) [see note 1]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; January 22, 1943, given over to the Federal Monuments Office, Vienna and subsequently moved to Alt Aussee; recovered by Allied forces and, about 1947, returned to Clarice de Rothschild, New York [see note 2]; by descent to her daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild (b. 1924 - d. 2012); about 1990/1992, given by Bettina Looram de Rothschild to members of her family; 2019, gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 19, 2019)
NOTES:
[1] With the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the possessions of Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild were seized and expropriated almost immediately by Nazi forces. This commode appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 151: "Eine Kommode aus Kirschholz, mit seitlichen Laden und Middelfach, mit eingelegten Platten aus chinesischem Lack, französisch, Ende 18. Jhdt." Katalog beschlagnahmter Sammlungen, inbesondere der Rothschild-Sammlungen in Wien, Verlags-Nr. 4938, Staatsdruckerei Wien, 1939, Privatarchiv, reproduced in Sophie Lillie, "Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens" (Vienna, 2003), p. 1010.
[2] This commode was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1943. Card no. AR 151, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online. It was probably among the many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis, which were moved to the abandoned salt mines of Alt Aussee in Austria to be kept safe from wartime bombing. Allied troops recovered the looted artwork at the end of World War II, and established collecting points where the art could be identified for restitution to its rightful owners. In 1947 Clarice de Rothschild visited the salt mines at Alt Aussee, where she was able to identify the crates of works of art from her family’s collection, facilitating its return shortly thereafter.
NOTES:
[1] With the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the possessions of Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild were seized and expropriated almost immediately by Nazi forces. This commode appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 151: "Eine Kommode aus Kirschholz, mit seitlichen Laden und Middelfach, mit eingelegten Platten aus chinesischem Lack, französisch, Ende 18. Jhdt." Katalog beschlagnahmter Sammlungen, inbesondere der Rothschild-Sammlungen in Wien, Verlags-Nr. 4938, Staatsdruckerei Wien, 1939, Privatarchiv, reproduced in Sophie Lillie, "Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens" (Vienna, 2003), p. 1010.
[2] This commode was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1943. Card no. AR 151, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online. It was probably among the many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis, which were moved to the abandoned salt mines of Alt Aussee in Austria to be kept safe from wartime bombing. Allied troops recovered the looted artwork at the end of World War II, and established collecting points where the art could be identified for restitution to its rightful owners. In 1947 Clarice de Rothschild visited the salt mines at Alt Aussee, where she was able to identify the crates of works of art from her family’s collection, facilitating its return shortly thereafter.