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-
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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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