Commode à vantaux ca. 1775–79 with later alterations David Roentgen German This important Roentgen commode, as well as another example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (W 51-1948), both have an illustrious provenance. Their histories may have begun in the royal apartments at Versailles. During the nineteenth century this example now at the Metropolitan Museum belonged to Baron Mayer de Rothschild, a member of the distinguished banking and art-collecting family, who kept it at Mentmore Towers, his palatial and splendidly appointed residence in Buckinghamshire. In 1964 it went under the

Commode à vantaux ca. 1775–79 with later alterations David Roentgen German This important Roentgen commode, as well as another example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (W 51-1948), both have an illustrious provenance. Their histories may have begun in the royal apartments at Versailles. During the nineteenth century this example now at the Metropolitan Museum belonged to Baron Mayer de Rothschild, a member of the distinguished banking and art-collecting family, who kept it at Mentmore Towers, his palatial and splendidly appointed residence in Buckinghamshire. In 1964 it went under the hammer in London and fetched the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of furniture, attracting tremendous media attention.[1]The New York and London commodes are related closely to each other and to the latter’s nearly identical counterpart at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, with which it once formed a pair in the collection of the grand duke of Sachsen-Weimar.[2] All three pieces are so-called commodes à vantaux, which means they have three doors concealing interior drawers; however, they all include a shelf compartment, rather than drawers, behind the central door, which transforms the type into a combination of the commode à vantaux and a variation called commode en bas d’armoire.[3]All three commodes have six feet. The feet of the New York commode, however, represent a unique departure in Roentgen’s oeuvre. Although the four outside feet are square as usual, the two front middle feet are trapezoidal and decorated with mounts on the three visible sides, lending an extra element of luxury. The fronts of the commodes are divided into three vertical sections, and the frieze contains a single drawer that runs the full width of each piece. The sides and the three front door panels are decorated with marquetry: the former show musicians—woodwind and stringed-instrument players—and the center panel on the front shows a scene of actors on a stage.

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