This commode was bought from Mrs Olive Joan Fortescue in 1977, using funds from the Brigadier Clark Fund, through the National Art Collections Fund. According to family history, the commode was owned by William-Wyndham Grenville, Bt. (1759-1834), prime minister to George III. Lord Grenville died childless in 1834. His widow, Anne Grenville, died in 1864, at which point their property devolved on Lord Grenville's nephew, the Hon. George Matthew Fortescue of Boconnoc, Cornwall. The commode passed by direct descent to John Bevill Fortescue (d. 1938) and so to his son George whose widow Olive Joan Fortescue moved to Ethy House, Cornwall. On Mrs Fortescue's death the commode was bought by the V&A. Its pair is owned by Leeds City Council and is housed in Temple Newsam House. There is a related commode in the Royal Collection (RCIN 39228). Of very similar form to the V&A and Temple Newsom pair, this object is fitted with identical angle mounts and very similar foot mounts. It does not, however, have the brass grilles seen on the doors of the V&A example. The Royal Collection commode is also constructed slightly differently, with a horizontally grained oak backboard screwed into pine(?) uprights, which in turn are fixed to the full-height back stiles. The carcase interior has pine sides, fitted with oak-lipped pine dustboards with oak drawer-stops nailed down at the front. There are two short and two long drawers, each made of oak, the drawer-fronts stained on the back face. No bill for the royal commode has been traced, so it was presumably paid for from the privy purse. The most likely maker is William Vile, who held the royal warrant in the early 1760s (generally supplying cabinet work in his sole name, and upholstery in partnership with Cobb). Vile's first bill for furnishing Queen Charlotte's apartments at St James's included two items evidently of similar design to this one, each described as 'a fine Large Comode Chest of Drawers ... Neat Wrot Brass feet and Ornaments up the Corners finished with Gold Lacquer', £25 (each?) (PRO: LC9/306, Bill 75, quarter to Michaelmas 1761). (1) Notes 1. Reference from Jane Roberts (ed.), George III and Queen Charlotte: patronage, collecting and court taste (London: Royal Collection, 2004), p. 261. Historical significance: This commode is an exceptional example of the curved shapes of English rococo design. In its structure and decoration, the characteristic rococo line found in the object's double serpentine front is reflected and extended by the swirling forms of the grilles attached to the double doors. Beautifully finished, the top of the commode is almost entirely covered by one single sheet of mahogany veneer. The sides are also veneered with flame mahogany - each sheet framed with an oval of brass acanthus-wrapped moulding. These oval moulds are characteristic of other work attributed to Vile, and his partner John Cobb. The grilles attached to the front of this commode are one of its most distinctive features. The treatment of the grilles reflects the fashion for brass inlay in eighteenth-century English furniture, but here the 'inlay' is shown without a wood support.