The present commode bears several features associated with the great partnership of William Ince and John Mayhew, and relates to a commode thought to have been supplied to the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace (ill. C. Cator and H. Roberts, Industry and Ingenuity: The Partnership of William Ince and John Mayhew, 2022, figs. 222-223). Ince and Mayhew are first recorded as having worked at Blenheim in a letter from Sir William Chambers, who had been employed to remodel much of the house from 1766 onwards, to the Duke in 10 July 1773. Although none of the pieces supplied by Ince and Mayhew to Blenheim can be identified with certainty, their involvement in Chamber’s remodelling of the house was likely considerable. Both the present commode and the Blenheim model have an ebonised moulded top border and boldly inlaid marquetry across the two doors, but it is the use of husk swags which is most redolent of the work of Ince and Mayhew. On the Blenheim commode the husk swags are illusionistically looped over and under the crossbanded border, a feature shared with a pair of commodes supplied to the Earl of Exeter at Burghley in 1767 (ill. C. Cator and H. Roberts, Industry and Ingenuity: The Partnership of William Ince and John Mayhew, 2022, figs. 199-200). Although the present commode is less illusionistic in its use of marquetry, the husk swags are draped over engraved paterae, one of which features on the top of the Blenheim commode, and which feature frequently in the work of Ince and Mayhew.

The elegant, serpentine form of the present commode also relates closely to the work of Ince and Mayhew. A restrained, French influence continued in the firm’s output throughout the 1770s and 1780s, evident in their use of a ‘Louis XV’ form with shaped aprons and bombé forms, popularised by John Linnell and Pierre Langlois in the first half of the prior decade. This is evident in a commode probably supplied to Nicholas Wescomb sold Christie's, London, 3 July 1997, lot 19 and subsequently Sotheby’s, London, 3 July 2019, lot 19 (£275,000) (illustrated and discussed C. Cator and H. Roberts, Industry and Ingenuity: The Partnership of William Ince and John Mayhew, 2022, p. 262, fig. 228) and an almost identical commode from the collection of Simon Sainsbury, sold Christie’s, London, 18 June 2008, lot 65 (£140,000), the latter of which bears a similarly shaped apron to the present commode.

The use of 'paktong' for the carrying handles, a name derived from the Chinese word meaning white copper, is an unusual feature. Paktong is a rare non-tarnishing alloy of copper, nickel and tin or zinc. Also known as 'Tutenag', 'India metal' or 'Chinese plate' on account of its importation by the East India Trading Companies, it originated in China and although it first arrived in London in the 1720s, it was developed by the Chinese much earlier. The principal advantage of paktong is that whilst resembling silver, unlike unaffected by atmospheric conditions, and can be easily cast, hammered and polished. Its unusual qualities were especially suited to such purposes as chimney-furniture and candlesticks. It would appear articles of paktong where being produced in manufactories across Britain and Europe in the 18th century. An account by Dorothy Richards of a visit to Matthew Boulton's famous manufactory in Birmingham in May 1770 records the activities underway in Room 29. Richards observes 'polishing Chinese plate, a new composition, which looks exactly like silver, and never changes colour' (N. Goodison, Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, Singapore, 2002, p. 24). It is conceivable the handles on the present commode where supplied by Boulton who collaborated with Ince and Mayhew on the production of the ormolu mounts for the famous Duchess of Manchester cabinet (N. Goodison, op. cit., p. 249-254, figs. 200-207).