Dictionary of Furniture by Charles Boyce

Author:Charles Boyce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Louis XIII chair

Louis XIV chair

LOUIS SEIZE IMPÉRATRICE

See Louis XVI Revival style.

LOUIS STYLE

Nineteenth-century name for either Rococo Revival style or Louis XVI Revival style, more frequently the former.

LOUIS XIII STYLE

Furniture of early 17th-century France, named for king who reigned in 1610–43. The Louis XIII style was characterized by a last, gaudy, uninspired reprise of Mannerist style ornamentation in extravagant materials. In a society recovering from the exhausting Wars of Religion (1562–98), increasing prosperity brought only arriviste tastelessness, with very few significant advances in design. The elaborate sculptural effects and grotesque motifs of Mannerism, now almost a century old, were repeated, with an emphasis on expensive materials, including applied semiprecious stones and veneering of ebony and tortoiseshell.

Some small innovations did point toward the future, though. The elaborate cabinet, which remained the most important piece of furniture, was sometimes modified by the addition of a fall front, producing the early bureau. Another variant, wider than high, foreshadowed the sideboard. Also, a variety of small occasional tables, mostly oblong in shape, testified to an increasing informality in domestic usages. Two noteworthy decorative elements were introduced: the first, imported from Flanders, provided the most prominent superficial aspect of Louis XIII–style furniture—heavily molded paneling in geometrical patterns; second, the use of elaborate turnery for legs, stretchers and applied decoration increased. Both of these features—plainer work amid Mannerist excesses—anticipated the more balanced and unified style of Baroque furniture, soon to be dominant (see Louis XIV style).

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