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
Chair-maker furniture. In the country manufactories it is otherwise; yet even these pay some regard to keeping their workmen constantly at the chair, or to cabinet work. The two branches seem evidently to require different talents in workmen, in order to become proficients." In Paris, a chair-maker was a "menuisier", or joiner: guild regulations forbade "menuisiers" to engage in cabinet making. Some "menuisiers" produced the planed and carved wood paneling for rooms ("boiseries"), while others, "menuisiers en sièges", produced the frames for seat furniture, which would be upholstered by other craftsmen, such as "huissiers". Chair-maker Since the mid-17th century a chair-maker,