Comparative literature: E. Colle, "Il mobile Rococò in Italia", Milan 2003, p. 394; G. Beretti, "Il mobile dei lumi, Milano nell'età di Giuseppe Maggiolini", Milan 2010, p. 124.

The present commode is comparable with a similar model in terms of shape and size already sold on the Italian auction market in 1988 and published by E. Colle (E. Colle, "Il mobile Rococò in Italia", Milan 2003, p. 394.), signed and dated 1774 by Giuseppe Colombo known as Mortarino, a nickname probably deriving from his city of origin, Mortara. A cabinetmaker of whom there is little biographical information and of whom a small group of furnishings certainly attributable to him is known, he is mentioned among the "Legnamari" as active in Porta Ticinese in Milan in the "Osservazioni fatte dal Corpo degl’Individui dé Legnamari sopra i Libri, e Scritture della loro Università esistenti negli Atti del Supremo Real Consiglio" preserved in the State Archives of Milan (the date of the document varies between 1770 and 1773, the year of the suppression of the University of Legnamari). The production of Mortarino's workshop, when signed and dated, is documented with certainty from the aforementioned 1774 to 1787, although it is probable that it was also active in the following years, under his sons Pietro and Marco (already operating in collaboration with their father), at least until the first decades of the 19th century. In addition to the aforementioned commode published by E. Colle, mention can be made, among others, for stylistic analogies, of the commode published in 2010 by Giuseppe Beretti ("G. Beretti, "Il mobile dei lumi, Milano nell'età di Giuseppe Maggiolini", Milan 2010, p. 124): compared to both of these reference models, ours however does not have the elaborate boxwood inlays with leaf motifs decorating the surfaces.