Very little of the furniture of the Old Regime would have survived the French Revolution had not the National Convention appointed a Commission of leaders in art to determine what objects should be preserved. The painter David and the cabinet-maker Riesener, served on this commission.

"Farewell to marquetry and Boulle," the people cried; "farewell to ribbons, festoons and rosettes of gilded bronze. The hour has come when everything must be made to harmonize with circumstances."

Every new piece of furniture was designed in sympathy with the politics of the day. There was a return to old Greek forms for chairs and couches; sacrificial altars were used for ladies' work-tables; and the beds were called "Patriotic," for the posts were formed of lances and upon the top of each was placed the Phrygian cap of liberty. Antique heads of helmeted soldiers and winged victories were omnipresent.

The short-lived Directoire Style merged insensibly into the Empire Style. The Empire was proclaimed May 18, 1804; but the Style had long been on its way. Bonaparte's expedition to Syria and Egypt in 1796 naturally rendered the sphynx and other Egyptian motives popular; but they were not new to France.

On Napoleon's appointment as First Consul in 1799, when it was necessary for him to have certain palaces re-decorated, nothing was thought more appropriate than the newly developing style that was destined to receive the name "Empire."

Percier was responsible for the designs of the furniture.

Directoire Chair, 1793

He followed the styles that the painter David had made the fashion; and the greater number of his designs were made by Jacob Desmalter, who is generally referred to as Jacob. The only charm and brilliancy of the sumptuous examples of the day are owing to their bronze-gilt ornamentations, and these fine decorations were made by Thomire. Many of them are very beautiful, representing figures, floral devices and classic ornaments.

Among other cabinet-makers who worked under the direction of Percier, and who were assisted by Thomire for the bronze sculpture and mounts, were: F. J. Pabst, Simon Mansion, J. P. Louis, J. A. Bruns, Marcion, and Lemar-chand. It may be also noted that when Percier and Fontaine gathered together all their scattered plates and published their book on Empire Furniture in 1809, the Style had been nearly ten years in vogue.

Of course, the Style spread; for wherever Napoleon's brothers established a court they carried the new furniture with them. Even Joseph Bonaparte brought some splendid suites to America to furnish his home, Point Breeze, in New Jersey.

The imitators, who followed the heavy models of pier-tables, console-tables, sideboards, beds, chairs and sofas, deprived them of their brilliant ornamentation; and furniture grew ever heavier as the Nineteenth Century advanced.

The Empire Style was in high favor for about twenty years, and to-day it has its admirers. Many modern critics decry it, however. Thus Molinier writes:

"Only one thing allows us to pardon the furniture of the First Empire for its incoherence of form and decoration, and that is the excessive conscientiousness that presides over its execution: from a technical point of view the cabinet-work and the bronze-work are irreproachable. But at this point we should stop the eulogies that have been given too long to what may be called a caricature of the French style in the second half of the Eighteenth Century."

Plate XXXVIII - Heppelwhite Desk with Tambour Shutters - Metropolitan Museum

The form of the Empire furniture is cubic and rectangular. The carved figure of a swan often occurs on the arms of chairs, sofas, and sides of the beds. The enormous scroll is also much in evidence.

The Empire Style was not known by that name at the time it flourished: it was generally called the "Antique," and this was divided into separate classes: - Egyptian, Greek and Roman. Percier and Fontaine headed the school in Paris; but the man who did the most to popularize the taste for ancient design in London was Thomas Hope (called Anastasius). His Household Furniture, which completely revolutionized taste in England, appeared in 1805. The designs of Percier and Fontaine were not published until 1809. Hope had travelled extensively in the Levant, and was an enthusiastic admirer of " Egyptian Roman " design. He met with much ridicule, but had a big following. Another authority of the day was George Smith, who was "Upholsterer Extraordinary" to the Prince of Wales. In 1808 he published a book of designs that were frankly taken from the new French furniture fashions. His observations on the woods in use are interesting:

"Mahogany, when used in houses of consequence, should be confined to the parlor and the bedchamber floors. In furniture for these apartments the less inlay of other woods, the more chaste will be the style of work. If the wood be of a fine, compact and bright quality, the ornaments may be carved clean in the mahogany. Where it may be requisite to make out panelling by an inlay of lines, let those lines be of brass or ebony. In the drawing-rooms, boudoirs, anterooms, East and West India satin-woods, rosewood, tulip-wood, and the other varieties of woods brought from the East, may be used; with satin and light colored woods the decorations may be of ebony or rosewood; with rosewood let the decorations be or moulu, and the inlay of brass.

Bronze metal, though sometimes used with satin-wood, has a cold and poor effect; it suits better on gilt work, and will answer well enough on mahogany."

On Plate XLIII. appear two chairs of the Empire Style: one French and the other English.