September 2026
Louis XV commode: recognising, dating, valuing
Bombé line, carcase, mounts and stamp: what separates a period commode from a 19th-century copy.
The Louis XV commode is the most copied piece of French furniture. Nineteenth-century copies are often excellent, sometimes better finished than the originals — but they are not worth the same, and it shows.
Start with the bombé line. On a period commode the curve is three-dimensional: the front swells, so do the sides, and the line runs unbroken into the legs. On many copies only the front is shaped; the sides stay flat.
Then look at the carcase, drawers out. The 18th century used oak or deal, mortised together, coarser than the front because it was never meant to be seen. An interior that is too clean, in plywood or calibrated whitewood, dates the piece to the 20th century.
The mounts are the third marker. Chased then mercury-gilded, they show crisp relief and wear that follows the hand. Mounts added in the 19th century are thicker, often stamped, with an even yellow gilding.
Finally the stamp, struck on the rear rail or under the marble: the cabinetmaker's name followed by the JME guild mark. Read it in raking light. Its absence condemns nothing — many provincial pieces were never stamped — but its presence changes the valuation entirely.
A provincial Louis XV commode in walnut, unstamped, remains one of the best values on the market: the same line, the same hand, without the Parisian premium.
