The furniture was made to agree with this decorative treatment; couches and easy chairs were designed in more sweeping curves and on a smaller scale, the woodwork wholly or partially gilt and upholstered, not only with the tapestry of Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson, but with soft colored silk brocades and brocatelles; light occasional chairs were enriched with mother-of-pearl or marqueterie; screens were painted with love scenes and representations of ladies and gentlemen who look as if they passed their entire existence in the elaboration of their toilettes or the exchange of compliments; the stately cabinet is modified into the bombé fronted commode, the ends of which curve outwards with a graceful sweep; and the bureau is made in a much smaller size, more highly decorated with marqueterie, and more fancifully mounted to suit the smaller and more effeminate apartment. The elegant cabinet, called Bouheur du jour (a little cabinet mounted on a table); the small round occasional table, called a guéridon; the encoignure, or corner cabinet; the étagère, or ornamental hanging cabinet with shelves; the three-fold screen, with each leaf a different height, and with shaped top, all date from this time. The chaise à porteur, or Sedan chair, on which so much work and taste were expended, became more ornate, so as to fall in with the prevailing fashion. Marqueterie became more fanciful.
The Louis Quinze cabinets were inlaid, not only with natural woods, but with veneers stained in different tints; and landscapes, interiors, baskets of flowers, birds, trophies, emblems of all kinds, and quaint fanciful conceits are pressed into the service of marqueterie decoration. The most famous artists in this decorative woodwork were Riesener, David Roentgen (generally spoken of as David), Pasquier, Carlin, Leleu, and others, whose names will be found in a list in the Appendix.
LOUIS XV. CARVED AND GILT "FAUTEUIL."
Upholstered with Beauvais tapestry. Subject from La Fontaine's Fables.
During the preceding reign, the Chinese lacquer-work then in use was imported from the East, the fashion for collecting which had set in ever since the Dutch had established a trade with China; and subsequently as the demand arose for smaller pieces of meubles de luxe, collectors had these articles taken to pieces, and the slabs of lacquer mounted in panels to decorate the table, or cabinet, and to display the lacquer. Ébenistes, too, prepared such parts of woodwork as were desired to be ornamented in this manlier, and sent them to China to be coated with lacquer, a process which was then only known to the Chinese; but this delay and expense quickened the inventive genius of the European, and it was found that a preparation of gum and other ingredients applied again and again, and each time carefully rubbed down, produced a surface which was almost as lustrous and suitable for decoration as the original article. A Dutchman named Huygens was the first successful inventor of this preparation; and owing to the adroitness of his work, and of those who followed him and improved his process, one can only detect European lacquer from Chinese by noting certain trifling details in the costumes and foliage of decoration, not strictly Oriental in character.
COMMODE.
With Panels of fine old Lacquer and Mountings by Caffieri.