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
Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide 36cm of the original edition. The Towse edition also has 88 pages of photographs of furniture done according to the designs in the book. The 128 plates are all monochrome, as in the original. It is not known if the designs in it are his own or copies from others, since (unlike Chippendale) he was not famous during his life and no piece of furniture can be traced with certainty back to his workshop. The neoclassical designs in it usually have tapered legs and a variety of contrasting veneers. On the whole this kind of furniture has a relatively delicate