Fig. 243. Boulle Cabinet. S. K. M).

Fig. 245. Carved Bracket; English; Eighteenth Century. (P).

Fig. 246. Mirror Frame; Seventeenth Century. (P).

Fig. 247. Holy Water Vessel; English; Seventeenth Century. (P).

Rooms were lined with looking-glasses having these rocaille mouldings, which were well adapted to show to the best advantage the glitter of the gold leaf that was used inordinately on the furniture and decoration of the Louis-Quinze period.

Pierre Germain, Jean Restout, and Jean Pillement are well-known names of other designers of the rocaille style.

Painted Panels Of Pastoral Scenes And Flower Groups

Painted Panels Of Pastoral Scenes And Flower Groups were the usual colour decorations of ceilings, furniture, carriages, and a host of minor articles such as fans, *štuis, snuff-boxes, etc. The latter smaller articles, as well as the state carriages, were decorated with paintings in what was known as the Vernis-Martin style. Martin was a decorator of carriages and an heraldic painter, who invented the particular hard varnish or lacquer which bears his name. It was quite likely that this was as near as possible a successful imitation of the Japanese gold lacquer that decorated the articles which were at this period imported from Japan by the Dutch and Portuguese traders into Europe. Carriages, tables, cabinets, and especially smaller articles like snuffboxes and needle-cases, were painted and decorated in "Vernis-Martin." Some of the smaller objects were beautifully mounted in chased gold.

It was quite a common practice to cover or to panel furniture with plaques of Japanese lacquer, and to mount them in chased metal or ormoulu decorations. A unique commode is illustrated at Fig. 248, made from panels of very old Japanese lacquer and highly decorated with ormoulu mounts by Caffieri, a skilled chaser of the Louis-Quinze period.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century an improvement in the design of furniture and of ornament generally crept in, owing to the study of the ornamentation and design of the classic objects that had been found in the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. These cities had been discovered in 1713, and about forty or fifty years later books were published illustrating the buried remains, which helped to change the public taste, and by degrees a demand arose for designs of a more severe and classic kind.

The prevailing taste was then apparently gratified by the mixture or grafting of a certain quantity of classic forms with the former frivolous style of the Louis Quinze.

The style in furniture and in ornament now developed into what is known as the "Louis Seize" (Louis XVI.), and consisted in its ornament of a composition of thin scrolls, garlands, bows and quivers of arrows, ribbons and knots, medallions with classic cameo-cut subjects. Mouldings were fine and delicately ornamented, and of straight-lined variety; in fact, the straight line now reasserted itself in architecture and furniture design (see Figs. 249, 250), in refreshing and healthy contrast to the tottering and riotous curves of Louis XV. and the Du Barry period.

Some of the most beautiful furniture expressive of the utmost elegance was made by Riesner and David, and was decorated with ormoulu mounts by Gouthi*šre for the Queen Marie Antoinette. Riesner and Gouthi*šre were the ablest men of their time, who generally worked together in the making and decorating of the finest furniture of this period. We are fortunate in possessing in the Jones Collection at South Kensington some of the very finest examples of this furniture, much of which was made for Marie Antoinette (Figs. 251, 252).

Riesner

Riesner usually worked in light and richly-coloured woods, such as tulip-wood, holly, maple, laburnum, purple-wood, and rosewood, for his marquetry work, and used oak for the linings and foundations. The best pieces of David and Riesner were usually mounted in ormoulu or bronze-gilt metal by Gouthi*šre, who has never been equalled as a founder and chaser of this class of work. Prieur was also a good chaser of the Louis Seize period. Delafosse was an architect and designer of furniture and decoration of the period, whose designs were designer of a light and free kind of arabesque. Many of his designs for silk may be seen in the fabric at the Silk Museum in the Bourse at Lyons. Le N*œtre designed for furniture, carving, and was also famed with La Quintinie as a designer of the state and public gardens.

Fig. 248. Commode, with Lac Panels, and Mounts by Caffieri. Louis-Quinze Style.

Fig. 249. Louis-Seize Writing Table.

Fig. 251. Escritoire of Marie Antoinette. (Jones Collection).

In Italy the prevailing ornament in furniture and decoration was more classical than in France. Piranesi, Albertolli, Pergolese, and Bartolozzi are names of the principal designers of this country in the eighteenth century, most of whom published extensive works on ornament. The latter two were brought to England by the brothers John and Robert Adam (1728-1792), who had travelled in Italy, bringing also with them classical ideas, which they developed in England, and which influenced to a great extent the style of architecture and furniture design in this country. The Adelphi building and the houses in Portland Place were built from designs by the Adams.

All kinds of furniture, sedan chairs, carriages, plate, etc., were made from their designs. Fine mouldings, medallions, rosettes, light garlands, capitals in classic form, fluted pilasters and columns, were all designed by them with the utmost restraint in style - even to coldness.

Thomas Chippendale

Thomas Chippendale was a famous cabinet-maker of the eighteenth century. His furniture, or even any good imitation of it, fetches a good price at the present time.

He published a book on furniture design and interior decoration in the year 1764. His sons are supposed to have made nearly all the best of the mahogany furniture known as "Chippendale".