Louis XIV 1643-1715

Louis XV 1715-1774

"WHAT France thinks to-day the rest of Europe will think to-morrow." This dic-turn was uttered a good many years ago. It was largely true then and has been so ever since. Furniture styles were included in this most comprehensive category, and quite properly so, for France set mobiliary fashions every whit as much as she did the fashions for wearing apparel.

England, despite her insular position, in no wise escaped the pervading French influence. From the Jacobean period - the first with which we are concerned in this volume - down to our own day, the French touch in the styles of English furniture has been manifest in one form or another and in greater or less degree according to circumstances. Sometimes the French tendencies suffered a temporary eclipse, as in the William and Mary period, when Dutch ascendency was at its height.

Even then, however, French textile workers, domiciled in England, designed and wove the gorgeous fabrics that helped to make that multi-coloured epoch of furniture one of the most dazzlingly brilliant in English history and infused a goodly share of their native grace and intuitive artistic feeling into the product of their looms.

Again, at times, we find French feeling strongly in evidence, as in much of Chippendale's work or the designs of Sheraton, and sometimes, indeed, it dominates the whole field, carrying all before it as it did in the Empire period. Occasionally French forms were deliberately copied, as we shall see in some of Chippendale's choicest pieces, but usually the Gallic bias was partially disguised under a shell of English adaptation - a French voice speaking out of an English body.

The practical result of this influence will be shown in the following chapters, and the subject is greatly clarified by the present survey in its proper chronological relation to English adaptations of Gallic forms and motifs.

These English adaptations might be passing good or villainously bad. It depended entirely on the individual skill and taste of the adapter. All the same, let the expression of the moment be what it might, the French leaven was there and working.

What was true of English furniture was, of course, true of American furniture in Colonial and post-Colonial times. In fact, in the early part of the nineteenth century, our great grandparents went to even greater lengths in their homage to French taste than ever their British cousins did, owing, doubtless, to the active sympathy of France in the struggle for American Independence and the subsequent visit of the popular La Fayette.

The long enduring Louis Quatorze and Louis Quinze periods, rich in varied furniture developments, wrought such marked results in the form and adornment of English cabinet work and chair making that we must know somewhat of the general characteristics of each style if we would really understand the course of evolution on British soil.

When Louis XIV was delivered from the narrow bondage, under which his early years were spent, his mind was firmly set to be absolute master of his kingdom and rule right royally. Now that the gloomy restraint of severe tutors and the parsimonious management of Mazarin were things of the past, the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme and the young monarch burst forth into a reign of unparalleled and magnificent extravagances. Efficient ministers, who supplied the enormous sums necessary, ably served him in his efforts to glorify his court and all its appointments. The greatest artists and craftsmen France could produce vied with each other in executing his princely plans.

Colbert's scheme of quartering them in the Louvre and giving them constant occupation worked well both for the sake of economy and the amount of work actually achieved by their systematic employment in the palace studios. The furniture they designed and made was sumptuous in the extreme and, along with the other equipments of the royal households, contributed not a little to Louis's title to his sobriquet "the Sun King."

In all the splendour of his long reign of gorgeous pomp and pompous gorgeousness there was, nevertheless, a distinct touch of severity. With all the gold and glitter and wealth of living colour there was a feeling of austere and rigid formality that the profusion of elaborate ornament tended, perhaps, to enhance rather than mollify; and when death removed "Le Grand Monarque" from a nation deeply thankful for the deliverance, both court and people were ready for a new style, dominated by a note of softer grace.

The style of the Regence voices a new influence. Thence onward furniture and decorations were in lighter vein. With a new generation of artists and craftsmen, imbued with new conceptions, ready, when he took the reins of government into his own hands, to do the bidding of the Fifteenth Louis and carry out the programme of lavish expenditure inspired by Madame de Pompadour, French furniture fell into a riot of bewildering variety.

During the Louis Quinze period we find more diversity and flexibility of style than in the preceding reign. The process of evolution works more rapidly. Through all the forms, however, the curvilinear principle is plainly dominant in contrast to the Louis Quatorze furniture in which the principle is rectilinear despite the abundance of ornate embellishment.

In this important respect the change that took place between the mobiliary styles of the Louis Quatorze and Louis Quinze periods is analogous to the change that took place in England between the end of the Jacobean or Stuart period and the early years of Queen Anne's reign.