Commode painted oak, walnut or fruitwoods, with carved decoration, typical of French provincial furniture. In the English-speaking world, "commode" passed into cabinet-makers' parlance in London by the mid-eighteenth century to describe chests of drawers with gracefully curved fronts, and sometimes with shaped sides as well, perceived as being in the "French" taste. Thomas Chippendale employed the term "French Commode Tables" to describe designs in "The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Director" (1753), and Ince and Mayhew illustrated a "Commode Chest of drawers", plate xliii, in their "Universal System of Household Furniture", 1759–62. John Gloag notes that "Commode" expanded to describe any piece of
Mark Wilkinson (designer) Mark Wilkinson (designer) Mark Roger Wilkinson OBE, OLM (1950 – 5 July 2017) was an English furniture designer. Wilkinson was the founding designer of Mark Wilkinson Furniture and Smallbone of Devizes. Both companies make fitted furniture and became divisions of Canburg Ltd. He was a visiting lecturer in Design Creativity at the University of the West of England (UWE) and contributed to design teaching at the Rotherham College of Arts and Technology, Rycotewood College, and the Chelsea-based KLC Design School. Wilkinson was described by Eliot Nusbaum, writing in the "Sunday Times", as the "Mozart of Kitchen Cabinet Makers" while the