The other room was furnished in yellow mohair. There were six chairs, a large chair, two stools, a desk and bookcase with glass doors, a dressing-table and glass, a chimney-glass and sconce, a bed and brass andirons, etc. The window curtains and window cushions matched the bed, whose bolster and counterpane, as well as draperies, were of yellow mohair.
PLATE XXVIII
[15]. Bridgman was a famous landscape gardener of the day, and Gibbs a noted architect.
LOUIS XV. PERIOD
THE LOUIS XV. PERIOD
The gloom and solemnity of the last years of Louis XIV., ruled by a morose monarch and his bigoted, unacknowledged wife, gave place to the license of the Regency, and the exuberant vitality of a young king, the influence of which is fully reflected in decorative art. The Regency saw a short period of inflated wealth such as had never been dreamed of by any living man. Law’s Mississippi Bubble, before it was pricked, enabled men to get rich in a day, and some of the upstarts paid fabulous sums for the best work that artists of all kinds could produce. Architecture had to give up parade and magnificence, and cater to comfort and convenience. Paris saw mansions and pretty little houses rise by the hundred. Their furniture and decoration bore the stamp of gaiety and caprice. There was open rebellion against the rigid rule of the last reign.