Furniture - French

From 1500 to the Revolution
To collectors and connoisseurs in England, French furniture, and particularly that of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, presents certain [p. 193] problems. Firstly, the range of materials employed on the embellishment of certain pieces extends far beyond wood; secondly the wealth and admixture of motifs, veneers, inlays and the profusion of metal ornament are often alien to English taste; and thirdly, the number of craftsmen to be found in Great Britain who are competent to appreciate and repair French furniture is still so small that valuable pieces are in constant danger of being badly treated with the wrong substances.

From the historical point of view, the various periods and styles have become so bond up with the reigns of the three Kings of France, Louis XIV, XV and XVI, that it is frequently difficult to realize that these styles and fashions in designing and decorating furniture often began long before, and ended long after, the rather arbitrary dates connected with them.

Nevertheless, the regnal divisions into which the subject has been conventionally split up have their uses in indicating the approximate style and period in which a piece of furniture may have been produced, and they have therefore been retained for the purposes of this study. [p. 194]

The Renaissance and 17th Century - In spite of the large amount of furniture which was made in France in the sixteenth century, not very much has come down to us, and what has is almost completely undocumented. We are thus very seldom in a position to say when a given piece of furniture was made, for whom it was made, or by whom. A great deal of research has at one time or another been devoted to distinguishing between the various provincial centers where furniture was produced in the 16th c.--whether, for instance, at Lyons or in the Ile de France--but the theories put forward are not very convincing, and it is safer to assume that most of the best furniture was made in Paris and probably for the Court, and that such known provincial pieces are variations on a style existing at the central point . . . [pp. 195-196]

The Louis XIV Period - The Roi Soleil came to the throne in 1643 at the age of five. It can be well imagined therefore that the artistic characteristics which have become associated with his name did not come into existence at once. Indeed, the changes of style in furniture did not begin to appear until the king's majority and the establishment under Colbert of that great organization for the production of objects of art, the Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne at Gobelins in 1663. This foundation, as much an act of policy as everything else, was intended to co-ordinate control of all the applied arts in France to the glorification of the Crown and the State, and under its brilliant first director, Charles le Brun, achieved its aim at least for a generation. The establishment of the Manufacture is, in fact, the cardinal event in the history of French decoration and furnishings, for it was under its aegis that all the foreign and native talent and experience which had been employed for two generations previously was incorporated and made to serve as a foundation for the establishment of new standards of taste and craftsmanship, this time wholly French in style and intended to serve a national aim.

As is well known, the first great task awaiting the Manufacture soon after its foundation was the decoration and furnishing of the new palace at Versailles, which was to become the cradle of French decorative taste for the centuries to come, and to demand an output of lavish expenditure unparalleled in history. It is only the more unfortunate that almost all the furniture produced during the first years of the Manufacture's existence has disappeared, and even the celebrated silver furnishings at Versailles were later all melted down to provide bullion to support the various wars of the later years of the reign.

What remains, then, must be regarded as only a fraction of what once existed, and by far the most important series of furnishings which have come down to us are the productions of the workshops of AndrŽ Charles Boulle [1642-1732], the most celebrated cabinet maker of the whole period, and the great exponent of the marquetry which bears his name. Boulle was trained under foreign influences, and his achievement lies in his adaptation of foreign techniques to his own original ideas, and to the combination of a new monumentality and elegance of design with a perfection of craftsmanship in a very complicated and elaborate technique.

In his early years he almost certainly worked in wood marquetry, following designs similar to those produced in Italy and Flanders, and to this was sometimes added the use of small amounts of metal for decorative purposes; but the intricate marquetry of tortoiseshell and brass with which we associate his name is, to all intents and purposes, an individual creation.

The principal innovations in furniture design during the period were first of all in the chest of drawers, or commode. It can be said to date from about 1700, though it probably did not come into general use [p. 195] until rather later. The other main type to be evolved was that of the writing table, or bureau. This first begins to appear before the turn of the century in the form of a table top with two sets of drawers beneath, flanking a knee hole, and later took on its more usual form of a flat table with shallow drawers under the top.

The demand for Boulle furniture diminished in the middle years of Louis XV's reign, but returned in full force in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when the neoclassical style came into its own. Often the same designs, motifs, and techniques were used, and it is sometimes extremely difficult to be certain in which period a piece was made when the quality of marquetry and bronze are the same.

It must be remembered that all furniture at this time, and indeed later, was made in order to harmonize with the rich carving and painted decoration of the setting for which it was intended, and designs which may appear overelaborate when isolated would often seem at home in their original positions. [pp/ 195-196]

The Louis XV Period - When considering the characteristics of anything connected with what has become known as the Louis XV or rococo styles in France, it is important to remember that their evolution was gradual, and indeed began some years before the date when the Grand Monarque actually died. The genesis of rococo design can, in fact, be traced back to the last years of the seventeenth century, and the engraved compositions of an artist such as Jean Bérain provide ample evidence of the new feeling which finally usurped the classicism, formality, and monumentality exemplified by the creation of Versailles.

It was, however, the removal in 1715 of the central personality in the formal and centralized Court and Government, and the succession of a small boy, with the consequent reign of a pleasure-loving Regent, which provided the circumstances for the change in taste which can be so readily observed in the years which immediately followed. It is, however, a mistake to isolate the style of the Regency with what followed and to try to identify objects as belonging to the Style Régence unless they can be proved to have been created within the years 1715-25. It is much more sensible to regard the products of these years as the first fruits of what was to become the Style Louis Quinze proper, and the absence of documentary evidence providing the necessary dating makes this course more prudent.

The new style inevitably, however, received its first impetus from the Court of the Regent Orléans at the Palais Royal, and almost at once there is a lightness to be observed in interior decoration and furniture. The relaxation of the rigid etiquette of the Louis XIV Court, caused apartments, and therefore furnishings, to be smaller and less formal, and gave opportunities for lightness, fantasy, and colour impossible twenty years before. Gradually, therefore, the heavy monumental furnishings made for Versailles at the Gobelins gave place to smaller, more elegantly contrived pieces suited to the lighter and more informal atmosphere of the new type of interior decoration .

More and more, furniture was adapted and decorated to harmonize with wall decoration, which, being also almost exclusively of wood, created a harmony of design and craftsmanship never equaled outside of France. The Boulle technique passed temporarily out of fashion, though the atelier continued to produce furniture throughout the eighteenth century and Boulle himself did not die until 1732. The new taste favoured elaborate wood marquetry overlaid with delicate gilt-bronze [ormolu] mounts, and during the period the combination of these types of decoration reached a perfection of design and execution only surpassed by the subsequent period. The opening up of trade routes with the Far East brought a large number of Oriental goods on to the home market, with the result that a taste for lacquer was created, both applied in the original from China or Japan, or imitated in France and applied locally. The most celebrated imitation of lacquer was produced by the four Martin brothers, who patented their vernis Martin in 1730 and again in 1744. A number of Oriental woods useful for marquetry were also imported, notably kingwood and, later, purplewood, which was used very widely. Other woods used for veneering and in laying were tulipwood, hazelwood, satinwood, casuarina, and sycamore, often mixed in elaborate floral, pictorial, or geometrical designs, framed with fillets of box and holly. The range of design was very wide and soon began to be used with remarkable skill.

Apart from relaxation in formality, the earlier part of the rein did not witness any very startling change in the actual types of furniture used, and the forms prevalent under Louis XIV still lingered on, particularly the wardrobe, or armoire, and the chest of drawers. The former, however, while keeping its monumental proportions, was often constructed of plain wood undecorated except for carving; while the latter underwent a number of changes in design. The main tendency was for straight lines and flat surfaces to become curved and bomb*, and for the functional purposes of the piece to be concealed beneath the general scheme of decoration. Two commodes in the Wallace Collection, London [one by Gaudreau and Caffiéri, the other by Cressent], show these characteristics well, and divisions between the drawers being invisible beneath the designs of the marquetry and mounts. There is, however, not one straight line to be found on either piece. The extreme rococo tendency towards asymmetry did affect mounts and bronzes dÍameublement, though not for very long.

The latter part of the reign, with its increase of luxury expenditure, saw the creation of a large number of new types of furniture, mainly small, and nearly always intended for female use. The secrétaire ‡ abattant began to appear in the 1750s, also the bonheur du jour, the bureau-toilette, worktables and other pieces, while commodes, chairs, sofas, and bronzes d'ameublement of all kinds were produced in large quantities. This is the period also of the greatest ébénistes, including Oeben, Riesener, Leleu, Dubois [qq.v.], and others, and it is in the 1760s that foreign craftsmen, particularly Germans, began to arrive in Paris to seek their fortunes, usually finding them, in the profusion of demands for furniture. Madame de Pompadour played a large part in forming the taste of her time by her constant purchases of objects of all kinds and the Livre-Journal of Lazare Duvaux, from whom she bought so much, gives a very clear picture of how much money was spent. She was not responsible for the introduction of the neoclassical Louis XVI style, however, as she died in 1764, and many of the portraits of her, even just before her death, show her surrounded by furniture, particularly in the advanced Louis XV style.

A word should be said here about the actual creation of a piece of 18th c. French furniture. First of all a designer, sometimes the ébéniste himself, though sometimes equally a decorator, produced a drawing of the piece. This was then made by an ébéniste in wood, veneered and inlayed if necessary. Mounts and fittings were then produced by a sculptor and a fondeur and if required were gilded by a doreur, thus often involving members of three craft guilds and two artist-designers. Occasionally painters were also involved, thus bringing in yet another guild. When one considers the number of different craftsmen employed on a single piece of furniture, the harmony and perfection so often achieved are the more remarkable. [pp. 196-197]

The Louis XVI Period - As is well known, the main characteristic of the Louis XVI style is the return to classical forms and motifs after the exuberance and fantasy of the rococo. This tendency begins to make itself felt at least twenty years before Louis XV died, and it is indeed this particular regnal division which is so misleading. Between 1750 and 1774 a very large amount of furniture was made incorporating classical tendencies, and it is most important to realize this when attempting in any way to date a given piece of furniture from stylistic evidence. The change of taste was very gradual, as the artistic writings of the time show, and, as elsewhere in Europe, was motivated very largely by the discovery of the Roman remains in the old Kingdom of Naples, at Pompeii and Herculaneum. The subsequent interest in classical subjects aroused by such writers as de Caylus, and the contempt poured on the rococo also played its part. From a purely stylistic point of view it can be said that the Louis XV style proper had worked itself out, and the return to classicism came therefore as a necessary reactioh, and antidote. In spite of the enormous expenditure on furniture in the 1770s, both by the Court and private patrons, no very striking innovations took place in actual furniture design. The main feature of the reign was, however, the perfecting of processes used hitherto to an unprecedented degree. This is particularly the case with ormolu, which has never attained before or since such refinement as it did at the hands of Gouthière, Thomire, Forestier [gg.v.], and others. Apart from the elaboration and refinement of marquetry, plain woods, and particularly mahogany, begin to be used as veneers, and the rather controversial embellishment of furniture with porcelain begins to make its appearance. The large number of German ébénistes increased, of which Weisweiler and Beneman [qq.v.] were the most celebrated. The work of Georges [p. 197] Jacob [g.v.] in making chairs also reached its highest peak, and Boulle furniture became fashionable again and was produced in large quantities.

The influence of Queen Marie Antoinette on the taste and craftsmanship of her time, with particular reference to furniture, has often been stressed. It is true that she employed extensively and lavishly the incomparable craftsmen whom she found in Paris on her arrival as Dauphine, but, apart from this expenditure and a liking for beautiful objects, it is doubtful if she possessed any real understanding of the visual arts, and she certainly was no rival of Madame de Pompadour in this respect. It has also been suggested that her nationality attracted many German-born craftsmen to Paris, but, in fact, the influx of foreign workmen had stated and become an established fact long before there was any question of her being Queen of France. She undoubtedly did employ Riesener, Weisweiler, and Beneman very extensively, but chiefly because of their qualities as craftsmen, and only then on the advice of the Garde Meuble. [pp. 197-198]