Louis XVI furniture is characterized by elegance and neoclassicism, a return to ancient Greek and Roman models. Much of it was designed and made for Queen Marie Antoinette for the new apartments she created in the Palace of Versailles, Palace of Fontainebleau, the Tuileries Palace, and other royal residences. The finest craftsmen of the time, including Jean-Henri Riesener, Georges Jacob, Martin Carlin, and Jean-François Leleu, were engaged to design and make her furniture.
History 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 of furniture in the neoclassical style, inspired by Greco-Roman art. They were followed by the wealthy nobles who furnished their chateaux and Paris town houses in the new style.
The transition from the baroque and the rocaille style to the neoclassical style had begun in about 1760, near the end of the reign of Louis XV. It was advanced by the reports of the discoveries at the archeological sites at Herculaneum and Pompeii. Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, had dispatched a group of scholars to Italy to report on the findings. The group included the designer Jean-Charles Delafosse and the Flemish architect, sculptor and engraver Jean-François de Nefforge. Their engravings of Greek and Roman art inspired many furniture designers and particularly the ébénistes, who made the fine marquetry inlaid ornament that decorated chests and tables.
Marie-Antoinette was a promoter of the new style even before she became queen. In 1770, after her marriage to the Dauphin Louis, she took over the apartments of the former queen, Marie Leszczyńska, who had died in 1768. In 1779, she commissioned the architect Richard Mique to completely redo the Cabinet of the Queen. He covered the walls with white satin embroidered with flowers, arabesques and medallions. In 1783, she decided to renew the decor once again, this time with wood panels sculpted and painted white, decorated with gilded neoclassical frames and designs, including sphinxes and tripods, given lightness by bouquets of flowers. The fireplace, made of dark red stone, was ornamented with gilded bronze caryatides. The furniture for the room was made by Jean Henri Riesener and included a commode, a corner table and a secretary inlaid with cedar wood, amarante, and medallions of gilded bronze. It also included a sofa with a gilded frame placed in a niche surrounded by mirrors, and facing the window. This room, with its combination of comfort, intimacy and luxury, is among the most classic examples of Louis XVI style. It has been restored to its original appearance, while some of the original furniture is now in the Wallace Collection in London.
Another notable influence to the style was the work of the British designer Robert Adam, particularly in the design of chairs, and in the use of mahogany wood, which was quickly adapted in France.
A majority of the top ébénistes were German or of German descent, which gave them a common language with Marie-Antoinette. The most prominent figures under Louis XVI were Jean Henri Riesener, who received the title of ébéniste ordinaire of the royal household in 1774. His main rival was Jean-François Leleu, one of the few who was not German. Other ébénistes, including Martin Carlin and Adam Weisweiler, worked primarily for furniture merchants who supplied the wealthy Parisian upper class. They developed a new genre, decorating furniture with plaques of Sèvres porcelain or lacquered wood panels. The ébéniste David Roentgen kept his workshop in Germany, though many of his clients were in Paris. He became particularly famous for his elaborate desks, which frequently had mechanical folding features.
The French Revolution caused the dispersal of the royal furniture; most of the owners went to the guillotine, or fled into exile. Their furniture confiscated and was sold by the successive governments in enormous lots, with the proceeds helping the finance the long wars of the period. The furnishings of the Palace of Versailles was auctioned off between Sunday, August 25, 1793, until 11 August 1794, and were widely scattered. Many of the buyers were British, and some of the finest items went to the British royal family and to the Wallace Collection. In the 19th century, many of the pieces of furniture migrated again, sold by British aristocrats to wealthy Americans. Extensive collections are found today in the Museum of Decorative Arts and Louvre in Paris; the Wallace Collection and Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Metropolitan Museum in New York; and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Craftsmen, merchants, designers
The fine furniture of the period was made by craftsmen who belonged to guilds or corporations which strictly regulated the work of their members, as well as the access to the profession. The reform-minded prime minister of Louis XVI, Turgot, attempted to suppress the power of the corporations in 1776, but, meeting fierce resistance from the artisans, he withdrew his reforms, and then, a few months later, was forced to resign himself.
The work of making furniture was strictly divided into several crafts: Menuisiers were allowed to work only on the wooden frame. Ébénistes applied the marquetry; very thin plaques of different colored woods, to make the designs. Fondeurs-ciseleurs made the bronze ornaments on the furniture Fondeurs-Doreurs gilded the ornaments. Peintres-doreurs painted and gilded wooden furniture, beds and wood panels. Tapissiers made the upholstery that covered the chairs and beds
In addition to the craftsmen, there were the marchands-merciers, the merchants who met with clients, took the orders and commissioned the work, and the ornementistes, gradually becoming known as décorateurs, who designed the furniture.
An estampille, or stamp of the craftsmen, was required on the finished work. The menuisiers made the stamp of their name or initials on the bottom of chairs, while the ébénistes put their names under the crossbeam of bureaus or under the marble tops of consoles. Many of the marks today are difficult to read, and counterfeit marks were not unknown, since they could greatly increase the value of the furniture.
Materials The body of the furniture, the part crafted by menuisiers, was usually made of woods found in France. Cherry wood and walnut were often used, especially in regional furniture. Beech was commonly used for chairs, since it was solid, easily sculpted, and could be easily gilded and painted. Oak was rarely used, because it was hard and difficult to carve. It was usually reserved for frames and mountings.
The decorative woods for marquetry were termed Bois des Indes and usually came from South America or the West Indies. They were often named by their color rather than botanical name; bois de rose, bois de violette, and bois d'amaranthe. The late Louis XVI period, and a passion for things English, brought an enthusiasm for mahogany.
Chairs and sofas The chairs of the Louis XV period were characterized by elegance, lightness and simplicity of form. The most notable craftsmen of chairs were Georges Jacob, furnisher to the Royal Garde-Meuble, or furniture depot, from 1774, and Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené who obtained the title of official fourniseur in 1785.
The basic types of chairs were little changed from the Louis XV style, but a wider variety of forms appeared, particularly in the dossier, or back, of the armchairs. These included en raquette, en chapeau, en lyre, en grebe, en anse de pannier, and, the most popular, en médaillon. Another popular variation of dossier was the à chapeau du gendarme, or policeman's hat. The most classical elements of the chairs were the legs; they were usually carved like Roman or Greek columns tapering to the end, a style called effilés. The decoration of upholstery, following the taste of Marie-Antoinette, and to match the decoration on the walls, was usually floral,
The chaise voyeuse, a type invented under Louis XV, remained popular, It featured an armrest on the top, was designed so the person sitting could sit astride with his arms on the top of the chair back, for playing cards. A set of four of these chairs was made by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené for Madame Elizabeth, sister of Marie-Antoinette, and was delivered in 1789, the year of the beginning of the French Revolution.
Another original type that appeared under Louis XVI was the Fauteul de Bureau, or office chair. A set was made by Henri Jacob, brother of Georges Jacob, in about 1785, made of carved walnut, cane and lester. The seat was mounted on a circular platform, and could turn around, the first recorded swivel chair. In 1790 Henri Jacob produced a series of drawings of fanciful "Etruscan" furniture, inspired by a British movement and anticipating the wave of neoclassicism of the French Directory.
Tables The console table, which had first appeared under Louis XV, was designed to be against or attached to the wall, and was often made by the same menuisiers who created the wooden wall panelling. It was decorated only on the front and sides. The top was made of marble or other stone, and was either rectangular of half-moon shaped. It usual had four feet, joined an X-shaped or H-shaped brace for stability. The central point of the brace under the console often had a pedestal, where pieces of fine porcelain could be displayed. Some smaller consoles had only a single foot, decorated with carved garlands of flowers.
Unlike the highly ornamented consoles of Louis XV furniture, with twisting rocaille sculpture, Louis XVI consoles, particularly in the late years, had an elegant simplicity. They included small varieties, such as the Console-Desserte, half-moon shaped, with a white marble and a simple wooden platform below supporting the legs, it was made of oak and mahogany, with slender tapering straight legs, with small drawers, discreet gilded bronze ornament, and a delicate ring of gilded bronze around the top. Other small consoles featured discreet marquetry of ebony, rosewood, tinted beech, and ash wood.
A variety of smaller, more portable tables, also appeared, made either by menuisiers of sculpted wood or by ébénistes with inlaid marquetry of exotic woods and materials. These included tables for playing cards, tables for writing, and tables de toilette, or dressing tables, which were usually of a simple form covered with fabric with embroidered designs or with lace.
During the late reign of Louis XVI, between 1780 and 1790, the British custom of having a round dining room table permanently positioned in the center of a dining room, gradually took hold in France. These tables often had casters on the legs, so they could be moved more easily, and had an extra two legs in the center, so additional sections could be added to enlarge the table.
Another type of table adapted from the British model was the guéridon, a small round table on a single column, with a base of three legs, often with small wheels or roulettes. The German-born ebeniste David Roentgen made a small oval table with drawers that folded out in around 1780, It was crafted of oak, rosewood, sycamore, boxwood and ebony, ornamented with guilder bronze and extremely fine marquetry in delicate floral patterns made of different colored woods. There were also tables for the popular salon game of Trictrac, as well as small writing tables, which sometimes had surfaces decorated with marquetry images of envelopes, pens, and books.