Antque French Baroque, Rococo and Lous XV Chairs
French Baroque, Rococo and Lous XV Chairs 1630-1770
Baroque, 1630-1715 (Louis XIII/XIV): Until about 1650, chair legs are turned to baluster or trumpet shapes, then spirals, followed from about 1670-1700 by scrolled legs joined by matching front stretchers and accompanied by turned uprights to backs with high cresting rails.
Settees, either resembling three chairs ‘joined together or fully upholstered, are popular from 1660, as are day-beds and sleeping chairs with adjustable headrests. Winged armchairs appear about 1670, when Louis XIV version of baroque developed by Le Brun for Versailles, begins to affect design throughout Europe. Stools with upholstered seats (tabourets) play role in court protocol – folding pliants on X-supports reserved for duchesses.
In 1685, religious discrimination in France drives out many craftsmen and designers, in-
eluding Marot who settles in Holland and becomes noted especially for designs of grandiloquent seat furniture.
Rococo, 1715-70: Heavy, hook-like scrolled leg has gradually been smoothed into the elongated S-curve of the cabriole leg, which dominates the Regence and Louis XV periods cabriole leg terminates in various types of feet, e.g. scroll, hoof, in France, Italy; claw-and-ball in Holland, Portugal. Chair and settee backs lower. Notable chair-makers:
Migeon and Cresson of Paris; Nogaret of Lyon.
Italian gilded rococo settee, about 1750.
Rococo style often exaggerated in Italy, Spain and Scandinavia by use of boldly curved cabriole legs and asymmetrical cresting rails; in Russia, by exuberant carving on seat furniture designed for royal palaces by the Italian, Count Rastrelli. Portuguese chairs about 1750 have fretted splats and claw-andball feet in English style.
Mainly oak, walnut and beech for sophisticated fauteuil (chair with open arms), bergere (padded arms, cushioned seat), canape (settee); duchesse-brisee (daybed in form of bergere with removable extension).
Mid-17thC Spanish walnut armchair with baluster turnings.
Louis XIV carved and gilded tabomet.
German walnut fauteuil, about 1750,
A Louis XV rococo canape, about 1750-1760.
Frames usually exposed, seats and backs upholstered in velvet, tapestry, brocade, damask, needlework. Rattan, imported from the East, used from about 1660 for woven cane seats and back panels.
Ash, elm, pine, birch used for country chairs with wood or rush seats.
Baroque: Many high-backed, narrow-seated chairs have front legs socketed into flat seat frames; others mortised-and-tenoned.
Rococo: Most chairs totally devoid of straight lines; joining one curved section of frame to another entails masterly use of mortised joints.
Baroque: Bold turning, bobbin and baluster shapes. Spirals (’twists’) carved by hand until turners devise jigs for turning on lathe. Scroll legs shaped and decorated by carver.
Cresting rails carved with cherubs’ heads, vine leaves.
Rococo: Cabriole legs and curving frames shaped and decorated by carver, exploiting opposed C-scrolls, shells, flowers, moulded edges of frames.
Baroque: Silvered, gilded or left natural.
Water gilding more usual becuase it can be burnished or left matt; more expensive than oil gilding which cannot be burnished. Ground prepared with several coats of gesso (plaster mixed with size), coated with coloured mordant (blue, red or yellow) and, in case of water gilding, wetted before application of gold leaf over very small areas at a time. Cheap substitute for gilding is ‘Dutch gold’, using copper in place of gold leaf. Silvering uses same process as gilding, with silver leaf instead of gold.
French provincial childs chair.
Rococo: Left natural, gilded all over or painted, often with details in gold. Venetian seats brightly painted with flowers.
Louis XV seat furniture, especially if upholstered in original tapestry, much more expensive than 17thC baroque.
Frames of Louis XV seat furniture, as distinct from other types, e.g. tables, were very rarely veneered or mounted in ormolu, whereas 19thC pastiches
sometimes were.
Left, baroque leg socketed into flat -seat rail; right, mortise-and-tenon joint on a curved member.
Tags: cabriole, canape, chair makers, gold, Louis, louis xiii, Louis XV, Paris, Regence, rococo, rococo style, settee, stools, Versailles, walnut