As Oppenord may be said to have presided at the opening of the Regency style, so Meissonier inaugurated that of Louis XV. His rocaille escaped the exaggerations of the contemporary foreign masters, and kept within the bounds of good taste.
Among other decorators, less inventive but of charming taste, who followed in the traces of Meissonier were Michel, René Stoldz or La Joüe, Chevillon, etc. The Print Room of the Bibliothèque Nationale possesses a collection of the beautiful designs of the two last-named artists in water-colour and gouache. These designers used many of the same motives as Meissonier, the shell, the cabbage-leaf, the shrimp (of course, the forms derived from these objects), but they added to their decorations still more fleeting and vague elements, such as falling water, the ostrich plume, etc. La Joüe is a real past master in the art of introducing into a decorative panel a cascade which sometimes falls from nowhere and loses itself in pearly foam: for him everything serves as a pretext for a cascade: neighing horses plunging in the water, an open-jawed dragon clinging to the base of a column, a hunted stag vomiting a jet of water into a fount whose marble rim is full of twists and contortions.
The list of artists who contributed to interior decorations during the Louis XV. period is a long one. It includes: Boffrand, Le Roux, Oudry, Brisseux, Huquier, Pineau, Mondon, Cuvilliés, Gravelot, Boucher, Blondel, Babel, Germain, Marvye, Chedel, Jombert, Babin, Cochin, Pillement, Peyrotte, Eisen, Demarteau and Martinet. These are the great masters of the style. The principal smaller ones are: Aubert, Crepy, Vassy, Bachelier, Roumier, Vervien, Caylus, Lassurance, Lange, La Collombe, Dubois, Bouchardon, Prevost, Le Grand, Fraisse, Blanchard, Marsenois, De La Cour, Canuc, Poulleau, Mollet, Mansart, De Jouy, Perault, Dumont, Aveline, Cornille, Chamblin, Bellay, Vanerve, Pelletier, Paty, Chopart, Borch, La Datte, Lamour, Girard, Ballechou, Herisset, Hubert, Metayer, Servandoni, Sloiste, Caque, L’Hermitais, Roy, Duval, François, Charpentier, Lebas, Radel, De Lorme, Courtelle, Viriclix, Tessier, Lattre, De Laborde and Harpin.
PLATE XXX
One of the cabinet-makers who best produced the ideas of Meissonier was Jacques Caffieri (b. 1678), who was “sculpteur, fondeur et ciseleur du roi.” Even if he did not himself manufacture, he directed the production of splendid cabinet-work. His work is distinguished by grace and aristocratic elegance. He executed a great quantity of bronze for the famous cabinet-maker, Œben. Many extant works bear the mark of a C surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, and these are usually attributed to this master, but the great inequality of excellence makes many critics doubtful. Œben was a pupil of Boulle, and devoted himself exclusively to the branch of marquetry in cabinet-making, leaving the metal decoration to his assistants, Caffieri and Duplessis. His work was in the greatest favour with Madame de Pompadour, who bought it through the merchant Duvaux, one of whose best customers was the king himself. Œben died about 1756, and his works helped to furnish all the mansions and castles of the Marquise and King in Paris, Fontainebleau, Compiégne, Versailles, Bellevue, Crécy, Champs, Saint-Ouen, and la Celle Saint-Cloud. His widow married his foreman, J. Henri Riesener. The other great cabinet-makers of this period whose works are to be found in the Rothschild, Wallace, South Kensington, and other famous collections, are Bernard, Boudin, Ollivier, Dubois and Cremer, who worked principally in artificially coloured marquetry, and Gamier, Pafrat and Roubo. The latter wrote a very valuable treatise called L’Art du menuisier.
The taste for Chinese and Japanese art was very insistent, but at the same time only skin-deep. There was no true feeling for the profundity of the wonderful art in the patient work that produced the Chinese and Japanese lacquer. It was regarded as a toy. However, progress is noticeable, and fashion gladly welcomed the art products of the Far East. In Angola, a novel within the period, we read: “Upon my word!” says the Count to the Countess, “you have a splendid chimney-furnishing, and those Chinese cabinets are charming. Is this the rue du Roule?[[16]] I am simply crazy about that little man. Everything that he sells is so expensive and scarce.” “Oh,” says the Countess, “it is a pretty good selection.” “Well,” replies the Marquis, “there is simply a divine taste in everything there. There are little divinities in the most wonderful forms. This one, for instance; this and your fool of a husband are as like as two peas.” Another description from the same work and in the same tone tells us a “lit de repos, in a niche of damask, coloured rose and silver, looked like an altar consecrated to delight; an immense screen surrounded it, and the rest of the furniture was in perfect accord with it; consoles, jasper corner-shelves, China cabinets loaded with the most rare pieces of porcelain, and the chimney-piece was decorated with corpulent gods of the most wonderful and clownish shapes.”
These Chinese cabinets were principally of lacquer, more or less adapted to French demand. Just as soon as the French taste required Oriental goods, orders were sent abroad and the “Heathen Chinee” was quick to supply the foreign market. The native art was gladly modified by the merchants in accordance with the demands of foreign trade. Sometimes even French and other goods were transported to China to have the finishing touches added there. Of course, the time came when native craftsmen tried to meet the demands of fashion by imitations of the Eastern ware. The trouble was that for a long time the home workmen could not produce the proper varnish and make a satisfactory lacquer. Some workmen boldly used native varnishes without attempting to imitate the Chinese and Japanese, and produced charming work of the most delicate finish; but these, unfortunately, scarcely outlasted the special entertainment for which they were manufactured. The undoubted chiefs of these varnishers were the Martins. In 1744, a decree of the Council allowed “au Sieur Étienne Martin le cadet exclusivement à tous autres, à l’exception du Sieur Guillaume Martin,” the privilege of manufacturing for twenty years all kinds of relief-work in the Japanese and Chinese taste. In addition to the above-mentioned, we must not forget the brothers Julien and Robert. The number of panels, carriages, sedan-chairs, boxes and ceilings and walls that they varnished is innumerable. The rage for their work was such that the wonderful Boulle-work in marquetry on the walls of Versailles that Louis XIV. had had executed for his son were destroyed and replaced by Martin decorations on a green background. They also did a lot of work for Madame de Pompadour at Bellevue. Their fame spread, so that Frederick the Great summoned Robert’s son, J. A. Martin, to decorate Sans Souci. Voltaire even thought the Martin work worth writing couplets in its praise.
Like all fads, the Vernis Martin aroused criticism and enmity. Mirabeau indignantly denounces the “voitures Vernis par Martin.” Notwithstanding jealousy and abuse, the Vernis Martin held its own, and to-day is a thing of great price. Good as it was, it could not compare with the Japanese and Chinese lacquer, and the specimens that have survived are relatively scarce. It may be interesting to note that the old lacquers that sunk in the shipwreck of the Nile, in 1874, near Yokohama, were found practically uninjured a year afterwards. At the same time, the modern products of Kioto and Yeddo were entirely destroyed.
In the Louis XV. period, the word apartment means a complete suite of living-rooms. There are three kinds of apartments, large, medium and small. A large apartment consists of a vestibule, a first ante-chamber, a second ante-chamber, a principal chamber, a salon or company-room (reception-room or drawing-room), a bedroom and several cabinets (studies), and garde-robe (wardrobe rooms). The medium apartment has fewer rooms and the small apartment still fewer. However, to be complete, the smallest apartments must comprise four rooms,—an ante-chamber, a chamber, a cabinet (dressing-room) and a garde-robe (a wardrobe), to which a small staircase leads. Each room has its own especial decoration. First comes the vestibule. This is a passage leading into the apartment. It is ornamented with columns, or pilasters, and circular niches, in which statues are placed. The ante-chamber comes next to the vestibule, and is destined for the servants. This room is ornamented in simple style: the woodwork of the doors and windows gives it its chief decoration, but mirrors and handsome paintings are often hung on the walls, and sometimes the corners are rounded for the sake of effect. This room frequently contains a stove, so that the cold air from the vestibule may be tempered before it reaches the inner apartments.