Provenance: Sir Frederick Dixon Dixon-Hartland (1832-1909) and Agnes Dixon Dixon-Hartland (1860-1955), part of the collection at Ashley Manor in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire;
Amy Friedswede Dixon-Hartland (1870-1956);
Agnes Friedeswede Cecil Cowper Borrozzino (1896-1982);
Thence by descent, Private collection Rome.

Comparative literature: G.Morazzoni, "Il mobile intarsiato di Giuseppe Maggiolini", Milan 1953, pl. LXX (b); G.Wannenes, "Mobili italiani del Settecento", Milan 1990, pl. LXX; E. Sala, G. Beretti, A. Wegher, V. Simone, "Maggiolini & Co. Il successo dell'intarsio neoclassico nella Milano Napoleonica", 2020, p.39 and p.73.

This commode, formerly part of the furnishings of Ashley Manor in Cheltenam, the Gloucestershire residence of Baronet Sir Frederick Dixon Dixon-Hartland (1832-1909), has shapes and rich inlaid decorations that make it comparable to some models from the Giuseppe Maggiolini workshop, in the specific to some cabinet-making results of the so-called Monogrammist G.B.M. (already possibly identified with Giovan Battista Maroni or Gaspare Bassani). The inlays in maple, bois de rose and other essences stand out for their marked 'archaeological' character, with candelabra, festoons, bucrania, and, in the two side panels of the front, two elegant medallions with 'after the antique' profiles surmounted by a curtain and garlands of Pompeian taste: these ornaments also refer, in part, to that corpus of furnishings which, in the words of Alvar Gonzàlez-Palacios "have such a precise typological character as to be unmistakable, although not better documented" ("Il tempio del gusto, Il Gran Ducato di Toscana e gli Stati Settentrionali", Milan 1986, Vol. 1, p. 275). To this corpus, for which the name of "Bottega dei Fondi Verdi" has also recently been proposed (E. Sala, G. Beretti, A. Wegher, V. Simone, "Maggiolini & Co. Il successo dell'intarsio neoclassico nella Milano Napoleonica", 2020, pp. 72-76), our commode can be compared for the decorative taste both in the panels on the front and in the side ones and on the uprights, as well as, perhaps, for the characteristic of the recessed marble top and some figures with a green-dyed maple background, however lacking some details considered characteristic of this yet not well documented workshop, such as the framing in palmette frames.