This was brought about chiefly in the West of Europe by the Dutch and French marquetry work, developed during the seventeenth century.
Before leaving the Italian sixteenth-century work we must notice the mirrors, with their elaborately carved frames of Venetian design and manufacture. In this century Venice was renowned for the making of glass, for which it is still famous, and certain privileges were granted by the State exclusively to Venetian manufacturers of looking-glasses. Two Murano glass makers named Andrea and Dominico, who were the inventors, were granted in the year 1507 the sole privilege of making “mirrors of crystal glass” for a term of twenty years. Previous to this time the mirrors were made of various polished metals. The frames of the Venetian mirrors were often elaborately carved (Fig. 242), some of them being made in designs that were strictly architectural in character, representing a door, or window frame, with pilasters, frieze, and cornice, and sill or plinth. These carved frames were often partly or wholly gilt, and were exported in considerable quantities. Pictures were framed in a similar way to the mirrors, and carved and gilt frames were soon used all over Europe as picture frames. Later on gilt furniture of all kinds was made in Venice and was in great favour in the other countries of the Continent.
Fig. 242.—Venetian Minor Frame; Sixteenth Century. (P.)
The manufacture of marquetry furniture by the Dutch in the seventeenth century has been mentioned as having helped in a great measure to change the style of furniture design from its former architectural character to a greater simplicity of construction. Large panel surfaces were used for the purpose of showing to greater advantage the rich and bright colours of different kinds of hard woods used in the marquetry. Both natural and stained varieties of various wood were arranged in the designs in juxtaposition, and a free and picturesque kind of ornamental foliage was employed mixed with large tulips, roses, and birds in the Dutch marquetry decoration. Other materials, such as ivory, ebony, and mother-of-pearl, were also used as inlays. In France a similar kind of marquetry was developed, but the design consisted more of figure subjects and imitations of ruins in landscapes. A complete change in the design of the furniture in the latter country was also effected by the same desire to get large surfaces on which the inlaid work could be seen to great advantage, and the spaces were not divided by architectural mouldings, or pilasters, as they had been in the preceding earlier work.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, and during the earlier half of the seventeenth, the sumptuous furniture, the beds, and general furnishing of the better class of houses and palaces in France and other European countries, were characterized by the use of costly silk brocades, tissues, and embroidered coverings and hangings.
By thus seeking to give the furniture an appearance of the richest possible kind, such articles as chairs, couches, and beds lost in a corresponding degree their elegance and former constructive beauty. Under their gorgeous Italian and Oriental velvet coverings, their framed construction ceased to be visible. The above pieces of furniture still retained their sumptuous upholstery during the reign of Louis XIV., but the tables, armoires, cabinets, book-cases, pedestals, clock-stands and cases, came under the influence of the architecture of the period, when the king’s chief minister, Colbert, selected the best architects and cabinet-makers of the day to design the furniture for the palaces of the Tuileries, the Louvre, and Fontainebleau.
The greatest name connected with the design and manufacture of the magnificent furniture of the Louis-Quatorze period is that of André-Charles Boulle, whose work is known under his name as “Boulle.” This celebrated furniture[furniture] is an elaborate kind of marquetry of which the materials are rare woods, ebony, tortoiseshell, brass, mother-of-pearl, and white metal or tin. The mountings, mouldings, and other salient points are made in brass beautifully chased and finished, some of the mountings being in the forms of masks, foliage, cartouches, and animals’ heads and feet as termination.
André-Charles Boulle was born in Paris in the year 1642. His father, Pierre Boulle, was also a distinguished ébéniste, or cabinet-maker, but his more eminent son possessed the artistic gift in a much higher degree. In addition to making his special marquetry from his own designs Boulle also executed a good deal of his best works from the designs of Jean Berain (1636-1711), his chief collaborateur. Berain’s designs were more Italian in style, more symmetrical in the composition of the ornament, and more correct from an architectural point of view, than those attributed to Boulle himself, whose designs had much of the looseness and freedom of the prevalent Louis Quatorze.
At the death of Jean Macé, the king’s ébéniste, in 1672, who had formerly lived in the royal galleries of the Louvre, the logement and office of ébéniste to the king had become vacant, and Boulle on the recommendation of Colbert, minister to Louis XIV., was appointed as the successor of Macé, and was installed in his rooms in the Louvre in the year 1673. He had previously executed some important work for the king, and was known as the ablest ébéniste at that time in Paris.