The bases and supports of the furniture rest broadly and firmly on the ground. There are broad surfaces and few projections of detailed ornamentation that would cast shadows; the colours are bold and brilliant, the cornices resemble Roman capitals, the straining-rails are, as a rule, heavy and rectangular in section, and, with the exception of armoires and beds, the furniture is not high above the floor. Tables are supported by pilasters, or massive columns.
The characteristic ornamentation of the first period of the Louis XIV. style, which was dominated by Lepautre, is Roman or heroic. The motives are, for the most part, such as would appeal to a warrior or hero. We find trophies of antiquity where the cuirass, surmounted by a helmet, is accompanied by swords, and even by the lictor’s fasces, and sometimes they are heaped up in a mass, suggesting the spoils of war,—such as cuirasses, casques with plumes, shields, fasces, laurel wreaths and clubs. The winged Victory is also omnipresent, and Victories blowing trumpets are used. We also find allegorical figures, mythological divinities, river-gods resting on their urns, great cornucopias much heavier and with wider openings than those of Louis XIII., and heavy garlands, or swags, of fruits and leaves, having much longer and fuller leaves than the Louis XIII. style, and these trails of foliage frequently display a wealth of ample scrolls. The acanthus leaf, which is so popular, becomes very broad, even bloated, and all the other leaves in use are now strong and powerful. The mascaron, typical examples of which are seen on Plate [XIV.], Nos. 1, 2, and 3, the fleur-de-lis, the double L (the King’s cypher) represented on Plate [XVI.], Nos. 2 and 4, complete, with the cartouche, the characteristic ornamentation. Upon the latter are displayed the coats-of-arms, the fleur-de-lis and the double L, as represented on the plate just referred to. The cartouche has a strongly rounded and projecting field, and its form is either circular or oval,—a real ellipse (quite different from the egg-shaped oval of Louis XVI.). There is another peculiar decoration, consisting of a strange combination of the scroll and shell; the anthemion,[[11]] treated as a shell (see Plate [XV.], central ornament on No. 2) and the scroll mingled with the foliage of the acanthus.
The second period of the style Louis Quatorze is especially characterized by Bérain, and is nothing more than an attenuated Louis XIV., which forms a quite natural transition to the style of the Regency.
The swelling curves and the heavy masses of decoration gradually become finer, more delicate and more refined, until at length they merge into the succeeding period.
Another characteristic taste of the day was for the Chinese style. One of the Trianon palaces exhibited in high degree this taste for la chinoiserie in decoration. It was called the palais de porcelaine. Four of its small pavilions were ornamented with plaques of faïence in imitation of porcelain. The interior was painted also in porcelain. The walls were covered with mirrors and the furniture was extremely sumptuous. The flowers and shrubs were planted in handsome porcelain pots.
One of the distinctive styles of furniture at this period is that made by André Charles Boulle (also written Boule and Bühl). He was the son of Jean and the nephew of Pierre Boulle, both of whom were “menuisiers du roi” and lived in the Louvre. Our Boulle, born in 1642, also lived in the Louvre from 1672 until his death in 1732, and when Louis XIV. established his manufactory at the Gobelins he was made “ébéniste, ciseleur, et marqueteur ordinaire du Roi.”
Boulle’s furniture is exclusively de luxe, or apparat, and only harmonizes with rich surroundings. It consists almost exclusively of consoles, armoires, commodes, cabinets, tables, desks and clock cases,—forms that present large surfaces for the decoration that he carried to such perfection. His designs are very heavy. Occasionally they take the curved, or bombé forms. This swelling curve is especially found in the commodes tombeaux (tomb-commodes) and commodes à panse (paunch chests).
Boulle’s furniture was an excuse for decoration, which was carried so far that even the joinings of the panels were lost beneath the clever designs of foliage, flower, or scroll. Many pieces still exist that were merely intended for show (apparat). Yet nothing could be richer than Boulle’s work, with its marquetry of exotic woods, its incrustations of tortoise-shell, its threads of copper or pewter beautifully engraved, its scarlet lines and its splendid gilt mascarons, handles, and bas-reliefs that form a sort of frame for the beautiful marquetry-work. Particularly handsome are the console-tables, upon whose marble slabs should stand rich vases of goldsmith work, jasper or porphyry, perhaps, with gilt mouldings and garlands; and, when these are reflected back by numerous mirrors, the effect is dazzling.
“No one would refuse to admit,” says Havard, “that the architecture is the least remarkable part of the creations of this celebrated artist. His great merit independently of the perfection of the work of his ébénisterie, must be sought elsewhere. Boulle is a colourist in his art more than a designer. The contours of his furniture are often heavy, and he added nothing new. You may find all the elements in the immense work of Le Brun, the great master of decorative art under Louis XIV. The superiority and the originality of this cabinet-maker consists in the admirable combination of the bronze and the copper with the background of the furniture which he understood how to vary infinitely by the multiplicity of incrustations and mosaics upon the groundwork of oak and chestnut. This was his palette, from which he drew his surprising effects and on which he played with his consummate virtuosity; it is to this that he owes his legitimate renown, greater even in England that it is in France.”
Boulle’s furniture is now highly prized by collectors and brings enormous prices. In 1882, two large armoires by Boulle from the Duke of Hamilton’s collection fetched £12,075 at Christie’s in London. In the famous Jones collection at South Kensington there is an armoire specially noted for its beautiful decoration. Mr. Jones bought it from a house in Carlton Terrace, London, for a small sum many years ago, and it is now valued at £10,000. It is supposed to have been designed by Bérain and made by Boulle for Louis XIV.