Commode (one of a pair)
André-Charles Boulle’s furniture was sought after, restored, and copied throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in France and abroad. Around 1850, the London firm Blake produced this copy of one of Boulle’s most celebrated pieces, a pair of commodes made in 1708-09 for Louis XIV at the Grand Trianon in the garden of Versailles. In the 1820s, a certain Robert Blake was known in London as a “Buhl [Boulle] manufacturer and cabinet inlayer.” He seems to have retired or died by 1843, when he was succeeded by his sons (one of whom was William), also known as “Buhl & marquetry furniture & inlaid flooring manufacturers.” In 1916, Henry Clay Frick purchased this piece and its pair, 1916.5.02, “not guaranteed of the period” from the art dealer Joseph Duveen for a mere $15,000.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
Sir John Murray Scott (?). Duveen. Frick, 1916.
Source: Furniture in The Frick Collection: Italian and French Renaissance, French 18th and 19th Centuries (Pt. I). Volume V. New York: The Frick Collection, 1992.
