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In the metropolitan culture of France, French furniture, connoting Parisian furniture, embodies one of the mainstreams of design in the decorative arts of Europe, extending its influence from Spain to Sweden and Russia, from the late seventeenth century to the last craft traditions in workshops like Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, which came to an end only with the Second World War.
With the death of Louis XV on May 10, 1774, his grandson Louis XVI became King of France at age twenty. The new king had little interest in the arts, but his wife, Marie-Antoinette, and her brothers-in-law, the Comte de Provence (the future Louis XVIII) and the Comte d'Artois (the future Charles X), were deeply interested in the arts, gave their protection to artists, and ordered large amounts ...
The Louis XVI style was a reaction to and transition the French Baroque style, which had dominated French architecture, decoration and art since the mid-17th century, and partly from a desire to establish a new Beau idéal, or ideal of beauty, based on the purity and grandeur of the art of the Ancient Romans and Greeks.
As this photograph from c. 1890 shows, it contained a large cabinet filled with Sèvres porcelain dinner wares, probably more for use than decoration, and sixteen Dutch pictures. The French chimneypiece in this room was made in the mid-18th century and installed in this room when the house was modified for Sir Richard and Lady Wallace.
For a quarter of a century, the furniture designs of the rocaille style was dominant, particularly under the influence of Juste-Aurèle Meissonier (1695-1750), the Italian-born architect who became royal architect and designer of Louis XV, and the ornament designer Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754). Under their influence, straight lines disappeared ...
It was based on the use of marquetry, the inlay of pieces of ebony and other rare woods, a technique first used in Florence in the 15th century, which was refined and developed by Boulle and others working for the King. Furniture was inlaid with thin plaques of ebony, copper, mother of pearl, and exotic woods of different colors in elaborate ...
[12] [6] Cabriole legs were influenced by the designs of the French cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle [13] and the Rococo style from the French court of Louis XV. [14] But the intricate ornamentation of post-Restoration furniture was abandoned in favor of more conservative designs, possibly under the influence of the simple and elegant lines ...
A bergère is an enclosed upholstered French armchair [1] with an upholstered back and armrests on upholstered frames. [2] The seat frame is over-upholstered, but the rest of the wooden framing is exposed: it may be moulded or carved, and of beech, painted or gilded, or of fruitwood, walnut or mahogany with a waxed finish. Padded elbowrests may ...