How to assess the Value of an Antique and How to spot fakes



Fabulous French Furniture Part 2

Louis XV- Empire

.3 CEU

3807 Riley St.

Houston, Texas 77005

Tel. 713 464-0055

Cell 713 269-6909

Email: Beverly@

Website: InteriorDesign-

and click on InteriorDesign-ED

Beverly Vosko’s

InteriorDesign-ED

Fabulous French Furniture Louis XV -Empire Handouts

Welcome to out .3 CEU Seminar

Louis XV 1730-1760

Rococo style – light playful frivolous imaginative style where sinuous

Graceful supple curves disguise all joints and a deliberate asymmetry is sought after

Motifs: monkeys, fantastic little animals, dogs, birds swinging from bows of ribbons and delicate trellis-work patterns, flowers arranged in sprays, garlands and pendants or scattered among twisted branches, cyma “S” curves

And “C” curves

Reissner is famous cabinetmaker

Furniture now totally emancipated from Architecture

• Seating

Louis XV armchair has a lower back and cabriole legs

Setee, an extra wide armchair on which several people could sit together

Becomes a standard item of salon furniture made en suite with arm chair

• Beds

French beds now have headboards

• Tables

There is still no table made exclusively for eating – ie no dining table yet

Instead there is a great variety of small tables that begin to fill salon and other rooms

Writing tables, games tables, dressing tables, bedside tables, occasional tables and tables simply used to display items

• Case Furniture

Commodes or chest of drawers became lighter in form

Drop front secretaire appears

Armoires popular

Louis XVI-1760-1789

Return to Neoclassical Antiquity – ovals and straight, smooth unbroken lines triumph

Veneering and Marquetry – both geometric and floral designs

Satinwood becomes very fashionable as does ebony (again)

Sevres and Wedgewood Porcelain plaques incorporated into furniture

Brass is used as pierced galleries, inlaid in narrow strips to frame panels, or inlaid in fluted grooves - brass rings encircle pilasters

Bronze mounts are in form of lion’s paws handles, keyhole plates, decoration on friezes which are like jewelry & discretely decorate piece

Motifs include Greek key, Pearl Beading, egg and dart molding, dentil moldings, imbricated scalework, rosettes, small repetitive details, tassels, paws and lion’s masks, columns, pilasters, fluting, leaves, flowers, fruit, pastoral attributes and musical instruments

Furniture

• Seating

Many Different kinds of chairs – with round, square or rectangular backs and seats and tapered fluted and sometimes even spiraled legs

• Tables

Countless little tables with straight lines and tapered fluted legs

Work tables, gueridon tables, games tables, bedside tables, bureaus

Bureau a cylinders (roll top desk appears), bureau plats

Dining tables appear at end of century

• Case Furniture

Armoires – tend to keep Louis XV contours rather than become rectilinear – but have NeoClassical motifs

• New Pieces: Bonheur-du-jours and Secretaire a abattant (vertical dropfront secretarie)

• Large Mirror appears for 1st time

Directoire and Consulate Period 1789-1804

Brief period separating Louis XVI and Empire Period

Stylistically severe looking furniture – Greek style copied academically and stringently

Immediately after Revolution “storming the Bastille scenes” are hastily plastered over Louis XVI furniture – then becomes more opulent as time goes by

Continuum beginning with very simple, severe furniture and ending with very opulent furniture

Tend toward geometrical forms, straight lines and simple curves

Ornament doesn’t disguise structural form

Empire 1804-1830

Ancient classical motifs rigorously interpreted

Furniture characterized by heavy rectilinear forms embellished with large gilt bronze mounts, severe lines and wide flat unbroken surfaces

Stylistic elements of Empire typified by:

• A love of and exact copying of all things Greek, based upon Greek cave paintings found on Pompeian cave walls, Greek vases and bronzes

• Monumental proportions – heavy furniture laden with bronze mounts

• Percier and Fontaine architects wrote Empire style pattern book “Recuil de Decoration Interieure” and designed not only the ceilings, paneling and draperies, but furniture as well

Motifs: lions, stars, crowns, crowns of stars, bees, swans, mythological scenes such as nude or robed gods and goddesses in classical draperies, Greek dancers with floating scarves and billowing tunics, rams, winged or wingless horses and mythological animals such as sphinxes and dragons, lyres and other musical instruments, attributes of war such as Roman swords, rapiers, shields, helmets, bows, arrows, quivers, oak tresses, laurel wreaths, olive crowns.

palmettes, water lilies, circles, ovals, lozenges, cornucopia, human figures and royal monograms

Furniture

Furniture now occupies a permanent position in the room – informal arrangement of furniture

• Seating

Empire armchairs built on ample proportions

Backs invariable upholstered, rectilinear or rolled over backwards

Seats are square, arms rests fitted with pads, arms are continuous with legs which take on various forms such as caryatids, one legged lions, swans, eagles, chimeras or dragons

Front legs are either cylindrical fluted legs or turned tapered legs

Rear legs are saber form, curving backwards

Stools very popular – “X” shaped linked by a cross stretcher and given an upholstered top

• Tables

Empire lavishes originality on legs of furniture

Supports come in various forms:

- a single central pillar

- a curvilinear tripod - 3 legged or 3 sided base

- a mythological animal or group of mythological animals

- Lyre shaped legs at either end

- “X” shaped legs at either end

Legs often go up and through the frieze as a decorative design

Caryatids are human figures used as columns

Little tables are still popular

Work tables, tea tables, jardinières, dressing tables, shaving tables either have legs with central animal figures, animal terminal figures at each corner or lyre or “X” shaped legs at either end

Dining table appears for 1st time

• Case Furniture

Pieces are dark and flat, and severe - with unbroken lines and large ormolu mounts

Bibliography

1. Boger, Louise Ade. Furniture Past and Present, Doubleday and Company Inc. Garden City NY Copyright 1966

2. Morley, John. The History Of Furniture. Bulfinch Press Book, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, NY. London. Copyright 1999.

3. Viaux, Jacquelin and Benn, Ernest. French Furniture, Bouverie House. Fleet St. London EC4.

4. Period Rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. The Metropolitan Museum of Arts. New York, Yale University, New Haven and London.

Biography

Beverly Vosko Allied Member ASID, RID, UDCP, CAPS, L.E.E.D Green Associate, CGP (Certified Green Professional) is a full service, Registered Interior Designer in Texas #6333. She is President and founder of both Beverly Vosko Interiors and InteriorDesign-ED; both DBA’s for C. V. Design Inc. For over 25 years, she has been designing homes across the United States and Europe, specializing in creating custom residential and commercial environments, be they traditional, transitional, contemporary or eclectic, that match her design clients’ every need, through her design firm, Beverly Vosko Interiors.  For nearly 20 years, she has taught Interior Design: first at Rice University, then at the University of Houston, and for the last 10 years nationally, with her Continuing Education company, InteriorDesign-ED. Specifically, she has taught Interior Design, Aging in Place, Green/Sustainable Design, Lighting and Antiques.  She graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania, studied Art History at Harvard University,  received her MBA in Marketing from NYU Stern Graduate Business School, and completed Design and Antiques training from Sotheby’s, the world-renowned Inchbald School of Design and Houston Community College. Please view her websites,  and InteriorDesign-.

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