18th Century Furniture - Venice (part 2)

Lacca Povera
This innovative decorative technique, which is now often referred to as 'Decoupage', originated in Venice in the mid 18th century.

Lacca povera (poor man's lacquer) is also known as arte povera (poor man's art), or lacca contrafatta (fake lacquer). In mid 18th century Venice, the taste for lacquerwork was so great that artists developed lacca povera as an alternative in order to meet the mass demand. This new, and relatively inexpensive, technique evolved alongside traditional lacquerwork in the production of handmade furniture.

The Technique
Craftsmen used engravings to decorate fitted furniture and non fitted furniture and other objects. These images were often obtained from specialist firms who produced sheets of engravings especially for lacca povera decoration. These were then coloured, cut, and pasted onto a prepared surface.
Several layers of varnish were applied to create a surface that resembled the high gloss effect of traditional lacquerwork, and the best examples resembled imports from the Orient. Initially, craftsmen favoured Chinoiserie designs, but European motifs also became popular.
The influence of the painter Jean Watteau and the designer Jean Berain could often be seen. The printed scenes varied from extravagant rocailles to maritime and pastoral themes. On the finest lacca povera, details were picked out in gilt or engraved once the varnish had dried. The most common colour for the background was red. Rare white lacca povera is now highly prized. Desks, chairs, tables, cabinets, and screens were all decorated using this technique.

Decoupage
The centre of professional production was Venice, but the technique became popular throughout Europe. In France the technique was renamed decoupage, from the French word couper, meaning to cut.
This skill was taught to ladies in the 18th century, and was mainly used on smaller, decorative objects, as it is today.


A LOUIS XV GILTWOOD PIER TABLE MID-1 8TH CENTURY
With later breche de violette serpentine marble top above a frieze with pierced floral foliate garlands, on pierced cabriole legs with trailing floral garlands joined by a rocky stretcher with boar and hounds.

A VENETIAN LACCA POVERA, POLYCHROME AND GILT DECORATED BUREAU 
 Decorated throughout with figures among classical buildings and bucolic scenes and flowers, the fall front enclosing a drawer, and with further cushioned and serpentine drawers below.

18th Century Furniture - Italy (Venice)

During the 18th century, Venice faded as a trading republic and was politically isolated from the other regions. However, the cosmopolitan Venetian Republic excelled as the capital of taste, fashion, and luxury, rivalling the reputation of Paris.

A Grand Palazzo
The grand palazzi faced directly onto the larger canals, and it was here that the finest furnishings, including fitted furniture, were enjoyed by Venice's wealthiest citizens. Huge anti-chambers measured around 36m (120ft), and special furniture was created for these rooms. A long bergere with an upholstered back, the pozzetto, was designed to be placed against the walls, as was the exaggerated divani da portego, a long settee.
The family bedchambers and associated rooms were furnished in luxurious velvet and damask, often fringed or laced with gold. The floors were laid with marble or scagliola, and the frescoes on the skirting boards and ceilings added more colour.
At times, the overall effect could be overpowering, and the furniture and decoration competed for prominence.

Bedchamber from the Sagredo Palace, Venice. c.1718
The furnishings relate to the overall architectural theme. The sculptural quality of the ceiling is reflected in the ornately carved headboard.

Furniture Styles

Much Venetian handmade furniture was brightly painted or decorated with lacquer, silver, or gilt, and ornately carved. Venetian design was the embodiment of the effusive Rococo style, which remained fashionable in Venice after its popularity had waned elsewhere.

Although the furniture retained the sculptural qualities of the Baroque, the carving was lighter and more delicate. Scrolls, serpentine outlines, and bombe shapes were common. Cabriole legs were often decorated with Rococo carving. 

New types of furniture, now reproduction furniture, included girandole mirrors, and gueridon tables that had a candlestand base supporting a marble top. Even large pier tables had carved and pierced frames that were gilded or painted in the Rococo style. In addition to pier mirrors or glasses placed over pier tables, other mirrors were introduced that often contained coloured panels of glass interspersed with the mirror glass.

Chests of drawers ranging from the French commode to smaller pieces such as the cassettoncino, typically with three serpentine-shaped drawers with square ends. These were often veneered in walnut, and supported on ball or bracket feet.

Pairs of small chests, comodini, painted or veneered in walnut, had a single door, sometimes with a drawer above, and were raised on short, curved or scrolled feet.

Another popular form was a small, bombe-shaped, two-door chest.

Lacquer

Lacquerwork was very popular in Venice, and was used to adorn everything from commodes to armchairs. Chinoiserie designs imitated imported Far Eastern lacquer, but Venetian craftsmen incorporated whimsical floral motifs, often with foliage.

It often took 20 layers of varnish to fully complete the lacquer process. Although the outsides of pieces were effusively decorated, the interiors were often relatively plain. Light colours were popular for lacquer, especially yellow, gold, and blue.

18th Century Venetian Commode

A Pristine 18th Century Venetian Polychrome Concave Block Front Commode Credenza with three long drawers and two secret and canted side doors opening to reveal ten polychromed cubby drawers, embellished with mascaron, strings of pearls and foliate motifs 

18th Century Furniture - Italy (part 2)

New Forms
Italian chairs were often inspired by the French fauteuil, but had higher, fan-shaped backs, which were ornately carved and often gilded. Unpainted handmade furniture was usually made of walnut, but fruitwoods were also common.
Side chairs, in the English style, had pierced splats with a central carved and pierced cartouche, and restrained cabriole legs. Some had flat stretchers . These chairs were often upholstered over the seat rail, rather than having slip-in seats. Caned examples also existed and more vernacular versions had rush seats.
Sofas, stools, and daybeds followed French fashion, although long settee's with joined chair backs looked more like English examples. These settee's were designed for specific reception rooms, such as the ballroom or the long rooms that run from the front to the back of a palazzo.

A mid 18th century George III walnut veneered bureau

The bureau has four pine lined drawers that have their original brass handles. The bureau drawer, of this non fitted furniture piece, fronts and flap are cross banded and have a herring bone inlay, the bracket feet have a good thumb mould were they meet the bureau.

The interior has six pigeon holes and a centre door, the door and side panels all pull forward as one piece and have two secret panels that pull out from the back.

Most tables had attenuated, curved legs, Console and side tables were still heavily carved and gilded. The marble tops were inserted or framed rather than resting on top of the table. Tables were now made for specific rooms - the trespoli, for example, was for use in a bedroom where it would support a dressing mirror. Gueridons, small tables often made in pairs, were popular and tendedto have a single, rounded, carved support above a tripod base. Larger tables had carved stretchers, often with a cartouche or decoration at the junction in the middle.

Writing tables had been used since the 16th century, but new forms now appeared. The bureau, or bureau-cabinet, became fairly common. The sides of a bureau were often squared and the central section serpentine in shape.

Bureaux were veneered in complex geometric shapes, generally of walnut, or tulipwood in Genoa, or decorated with lacquer or paint.

The credenza, or cupboard, was made of fruitwood and had elongated bracket feet that extended from the front of the piece around to the side.

The bureau-bookcase, now common in reproduction furniture, inspired by English versions, often had an exaggerated crest on top. The lower case had serpentine drawers, squared at the ends, and short bracket feet. Bureau-bookcases were usually made of walnut veneers, or were lacquered , gilded, and painted.

The French style commode was also popular, though Italian versions often had shorter legs. While they rarely had gilt-bronze mounts, they were generally lacquered, and adorned with intricate veneer and paint.

18th Century Furniture - Italy

During the first half of the 18th century, most of the Italian states came under the control of Spain and Austria. Only Venice, Genoa, and Lucca remained independent, although the republics of Venice and Genoa declined in power and population.

Italian Rococo
Italy was no longer a cultural leader in Europe. The noble landowners who built large palazzos were conservative on the whole and the Baroque style was favoured for longer than elsewhere. The only concession to changing fashions, however, was that handmade furniture for the main deception rooms was now conceived as an integral part of the interior.
Gradually, during the second quarter of the 18th century, as interiors became less formal, the lighter and more graceful Rococo style became more prevalent, reaching the height of its popularity from 1730 to 1750.
Italian Rococo furniture was mainly influenced by French Regence and Louis XV styles, but it was embellished with decorative lacquerwork, colourful paintwork, and extravagant carved details. Styles of furniture varied considerably from one region to another. Craftsmen in Piedmont were strongly influenced by neighbouring France, and Genoese furniture was renowned for its skillful construction.
Furniture from Lombardy was more sober and severe, whereas Venetian fitted and non fitted furniture was theatrical and colourful.

Sicilian Commode

The rectangular moulded top above a fall front opening to reveal two long internal drawers, raised on square tapering legs, the top, front and sides all decorated with stylised birds and flowering branches within a stylised dentillated rope-twist and entwined floral vine border within a pale blue faux-marble surround.

The overall form of this commode, with its pure, uninterrupted rectilinear silhouette and square tapering legs with block feet, is entirely typical of chests of drawers produced throughout Italy in the 1780s. However, the idiosyncratic use of a vibrantly coloured turquoise marbling around the borders of this piece of antique furniture would seem to directly echo the characteristically late 18th-century Sicilian practice of mounting furniture with painted glass panels simulating marble and semiprecious stone.

The bright colours and bold, simplified two-dimensional outlines of the birds and flowers are inspired by imported Chinese silks and wallpapers and probably would have formed part of a Chinese room, the taste for which remained unabated throughout 18th and 19th-century Sicily. The most celebrated Chinoiserie interiors on the island are those of the Palazzino Cinese in the Parco della Favorita in Palermo, built for the exiled court of King Ferdinand IV of Naples between 1798 and 1806, and recently re-opened after a twenty-year restoration programme. The internal decoration represents a highly particular fusion of oriental and then-fashionable neoclassical motifs, a trait also seen in the commode’s integration of a dentillated border with interlaced flowers.

Carved Console

A Very Fine and Large Early 18th Century Italian Rococo Giltwood Carved Console Table with a Castracane marble top of serpentine outline, all 24kt gilding original. Circa: Venice, 1720. 

  

18th Century Furniture - Louis XV

Comfort and Informality
New styles accommodated the desire for comfort and intimate conversation, while existing forms evolved to fit new decorative schemes. Console tables were usually gilt or painted, and were highly carved, often in a softwood, such as pine. Motifs often included foliage, shells, and 'C' or 'S' scrolls.
Non fitted furniture such as chairs were designed to sit against walls, and reflected the panelling and architecture of the room. The upholstered sofa, or canape, was essentially, an elongated arched-backed fauteuil a la Reine. Like bergere chairs, canapes were decorated in light Rococo colours, such as sea green, pale blue, yellow, lilac, or white, and enriched with gilt. Carved flowers often adorned chair frames.

Marquetry Bureau
This mid 18th century table is from the Louis XV period, made from kingwood, it has three drawers and cabriole legs ending in pied de sabots and gilt bronze hardware.

Work-Related Furniture

Wide handmade furniture, such as writing tables, bureaux, were used in the bedchamber. They usually had three drawers at the front and back, although the back drawers were false. The decorated backs indicate that the pieces were designed to be used in the centre of rooms. 

Homes often had rooms dedicated to work. The desk, or secretaire, evolved from the medieval escritoire to become a case piece with a fall front.

Marble-Topped Commode

A Louis XV fruitwood marquetry and marble-topped commode. Mid 18th century.

 

The Commode

Commodes were the most prestigious and expensive pieces of, now, antique furniture and were lavishly ornamented. They were used in different rooms, including the bedchamber, although they were not used in reception rooms until later in the century. Commodes a encoignures (corner cupboards) had display shelves at either end. The commode en console appeared around 1750, and had a single drawer and long legs, designed principally in the Louis XV style.

The commode a vantaux, which has two tiers of drawers behind two doors, was most popular during the reign of Louis XVI (1774 to 1792).

18th Century Furniture - France - Louis XV

The prevailing style during Louis XV's reign (1723 - 1774) became known as Rococo, and was fashionable from about 1730 to around 1765. The style was a composite of influences, these including exotic Chinese design, rocaille, based on shell-lined grottos - and fanciful arabesque and grotesque motifs popularized by Jean Berain.
handmade furniture craftsmen in France worked within a strictly controlled guild system. Between 1743 and 1751, they had to stamp their initials on their work, followed by the letters J.M.E. (jure des menuisiers et ebenistes). As a result, much French furniture can be attributed to specific makers.

Lady's Writing Table

This lady's writing table was made for Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's mistress, by the German born maker - Jean-Francois Oeben.

This piece of non fitted furniture is made of oak and veneered with mahogany, kingswood, tulipwood, and various other woods. Decorated with gilt-bronze mounts and the top displays marquetry patterns reflecting Madame de Pompadour's love of the arts, including a vase of flowers, as well as designs representing architecture, painting, music and gardening.

Elements from the owners coat of arms are included on the gilt-bronze mounts on each corner. When the top slides back to reveal the workings of the writing table, the surface area is almost doubled.

Le Style Moderne

With origins in Regence design, Rococo, also known as the style moderne, ignored the rules of Classical architecture and was, essentially, a fantasy style with scrolls, shells, grotesque ornament, and foliage rendered in an unnaturalistic style. Ormolu mounts and carved decorations were very popular.

The style became sort after by the French nobility and spread through Europe, owing to the influence of artisans such as Juste-Aurele Meissonnier, a designer of gold and silver items. 

Along with Jean Baptiste Pillement, Meissonnier developed the 'genre pittoresque' (the original term for Rococo). Pillement's engravings were used for marquetry as well as textiles and ceramics, and featured Oriental motifs including stylized Chinese figures, swirling foliage and flowers.

Secretaire A Abattant

This serpentine fronted secretaire is veneered in tulipwood, inlaid on the diagonal. The upper section opens to reveal a writing surface and six drawers. Ormolu banding frames and marquetry panels.

  

Decorative Influences

The sculptor and architect Nicolas Pineau published designs for carved decoration for walls, ceilings, fireplaces, console tables, and torcheres, now used in reproduction furniture, which were widely used by cabinet makers such as Charles Cressent. These engravings spread the Rococo influence across the continent. 

The paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau introduced a new decorative feature, the fete galante. These garden scenes, showing aristocratic couples in amorous pursuits, were depicted in marquetry, painted furniture, and tapestries and textiles.

18th Century Furniture - The Regence part 2

The New Style Spreads
The Court's move to Paris meant that Paris became fashionable, and the French nobility began to prefer city life to the isolation of their country residences. They refurbished their grand homes in Paris and built new ones, and the merchant classes followed suit. Rooms remained sparsely furnished, with the majority of the furniture, now reproduction furniture, arranged symmetrically around the walls, to show off the highly polished, wooden parquet floors.
Furniture followed the significant changes to design and elements of Regence style that the refurbishment of the Palais Royal had introduced. Instead of having straight legs, cupboards, tables, and chairs were now slightly curved, echoing the contour of a crossbow (contour a L'arbalete).
Veneers, including boullework, were still popular, and thin bronze inlays were used to frame drawers, panels, edges, corners, and legs of furniture.
The commode evolved from the chest of drawers, and had curved legs and an exaggerated curved case, described as bombe. Pairs of commodes with pier glasses, or console tables, often flanked windows, and stools were designed to fit window embrasures. The most popular variation was the commode developed by Cressent. This piece had two drawers - one above the other - a serpentine front and a shaped apron, supported on cabriole legs.
The bureau Mazarin was replaced by the bureau plat - a writing table with three shallow drawers. These pieces were usually veneered in expensive woods and had ormolu mounts on the edges of the cases and feet, forming 'shoes' known as sabots.

Fashionable Influences
The new interest in salons, where people could gather for conversation, was led largely by women, and meant the elegant, less formal rooms became popular. Woman also influenced chair design. This had changed little until about 1720, when the fashion for hooped skirts led to chair arms being shortened.
Chair backs were lowered to accommodate the elaborate coiffures of the day. A desire for greater comfort brought about the creation of the bergere, an armchair with upholstered panels between the arms and seat.
The fauteuil, an upholstered armchair with open sides, had many variations - the fauteuil a la Reine rested against the panelled wall of a room - while the smaller fauteuil en cabriolet could be moved to the centre of a room.
In reception rooms, the shapes of sofa and chair backs (non fitted furniture) echoed the wall panelling, and the seating was upholstered in matching fabrics, usually costly woven silks.

French Commode
A very elegant, late 18th century French bow fronted commode of pleasant proportions in cherry and cocuswood.
Cocuswood (also sometimes spelled "coccuswood") is one of the classic woods, one of the first exports from the West Indies to Europe. It is sometimes called Jamaican ebony.
Generally used for musical instruments and is unusual to be used in larger pieces of furniture.

Tapestry-Covered Fauteuil

This pieces of handmade furniture, a walnut armchair has non padded arms with scrolling carved supports. The cabriole legs are joined by a cross stretcher and have outward pointing toes.

18th Century France - The Regence

When Louis XIV died in 1715 he left the throne to his young great-grandson, the future Louis XV, who was not legally permitted to become king for another eight years. Therefore, Philippe, duc d'Orleans, was appointed Regent from 1715 to 1723, a period known as Regence.
The duc d'Orleans moved the court to his Parisian home, the Palais Royal, where he initiated a more informal court style. He hired the architect, Gilles-Marie Oppenord, to supervise the massive interior redecoration, including many pieces of fitted furniture, of the Palais Royal.
Oppenord, the son of a cabinet maker, had lived in the Louvre and then trained in Italy, where he studied architecture and copied Classical monuments. He designed the salon a l'Italienne at the Palais Royal, with panelled walls and doors influenced by the innovative decorative panelling, known as boiserie, which Robert de Cotte had used in the Louvre, during Louis XIV reign. Oppenord's flamboyant, sinuous designs incorporated naturalistic carved flowers, leaf fronds, mythical figures, and mischievous animals, now often used in reproduction furniture, and the carving was deliberately asymmetrical, with decoration flowing freely over the edges of the panels. This extravagant, curvilinear style foreshadowed the blossoming of French Rococo.  
Charles Cressent worked as both a sculptor and cabinet maker for the duc d'Orleans, and carried out many of Oppenord's designs. cressent made grand, marble-topped commodes with ormolu mounts, elegant writing desks, and many other pieces in the Rococo style. He also made furniture for Dom Joao V or Portugal and Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria.

Louis XV Commode

A Louis XV - handmade furniture - Ormolu-mounted kingwood and tulipwood commode.
Mid-18th Century, some mounts probably replaced
The serpentine molded fleur de pêche marble top above a conforming bombé case with two short and a secret third drawer above two long drawers, each drawer front and the sides panelled in tulipwood, the hipped angles mounted with pierced mask, strapwork and acanthus ormolu, the similarly mounted waved apron above splayed feet, inscribed in pencil Elisa Ceruier/Adolphine, bearing the spurious C couronée poinçon.

A Florentine carved giltwood picture frame mirror - 18th century.
The later rectangular plate within a pierced scrolling foliate border, the reverse with a printed paper label for
'Thos. Agnews & Sons/London'.

 

18th Century Furniture (elements of style)

Early 18th century furniture reflected a number of influences. Renaissance and Baroque motifs were still used, including shells, masks, husks, and grotto features, but they were lighter and more feminine.
The French Court was still dictating fashions, but from the end of Louis XIV's reign, styles became less severe and more frivolous. As well as the Rococo style, Palladian designs and exotic styles, including Gothic and Chinoiserie, were also highly fashionable.

Cabriole Legs
The evolution of legs marked a dramatic change between 17th and 18th century handmade furniture. The cabriole was based on an animal's hind legs, and may have originated from Chinese designs. Unlike earlier shapes, cabriole legs were not usually supported by stretchers. The 'knees' were often highly decorated on the finest pieces.

Claw-and-ball Feet

This carved foot was usually the terminus for a cabriole leg. The design may be derived from the Chinese motif of a dragon's claw clasping a pearl. Early pieces tended to have wide-spread claws, revealing much of the ball beneath, but on later pieces the ball was almost entirely hidden by the foot. At the start of the 18th century, pad feet were more common.

Ormolu Mounts

Mounts made of cast bronze, with a fire-gilt finish, were integral to formal French non fitted furniture. Originally designed to protect veneer, mounts were also decorative. The mounts were fixed in place with pins.

Craftsmen used the Classical Palladian and Rococo motifs of the time, as well as traditional motifs, such as this Renaissance masque.

Floral Marquetry

Elaborate pictorial designs in wood inlays were used as a decorative feature of furniture, and now reproduction furniture, throughout the 18th century, although English cabinet makers discarded marquetry in favour of carved ornament at around 1730. The floral motif, derived from Dutch and Flemish paintings remained popular in European furniture throughout the period.

Chair Splat

The back splat of a chair is a good indicator of the chair's date and country of origin. A solid splat, as shown in this example, generally indicated a date between 1720 and 1740. The carved embellishments and rosettes suggest that this chair is closer to the later date. Pierced splats appeared later when, generally, the back became squarer in shape.

Rococo Furniture

In the first half of the 18th century, handmade furniture design was mainly influenced by France, and it was here that the Rococo style reached its height in the exuberant pieces of Juste-Aurele Meissonier, Nicholas Pineau, and Francois de Cuvillies. Meissonier decorated Louis XV's bedchamber with fantastic, asymmetrical designs featuring waterfalls, rocks, shells, and icicles.
The new style took its name from the French word for rockwork - 'rocaille' (rococo in Italian). Its features included flowers, arabesques, C and S shaped scrolls, cupids, Chinese figures, and scallop shells. Pineau, a Parisian wood carver and interior designer was Meissonier's contemporary. Their engravings influenced all the decorative arts and were copied in other publications and by other craftsmen, spreading the Rococo style far and wide.

George 1 Chest-On-Chest
Very fine quality George I walnut chest on chest, circa 1715-1725, of wonderful colour and proportions with gilt bronze mounted columns to the sides.

The New Styles

Rococo furniture was interpreted in many different ways throughout Europe and America, but they all had certain features in common. Pieces of furniture were smaller, lighter, and more curvaceous in form than earlier styles, often with curved cabriole legs and pad or claw-and-ball feet. 

Women, such as Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, were very influential and coveted small, decorative pieces that were suitable for intimate salons and appealed to the 18th century taste for informality and leisure.

Many new types of chair appeared, reflecting the demand for greater comfort and the interest in conversation. The high-backed chair, typical of Louis XIV's reign, gave way to chairs with a lower, slightly shaped back, a lighter frame, and visible wooden framework, including arched crest rails.

Upholstered furniture, now reproduction furniture, was more widely available than before. Stretchers disappeared or were reduced to two cross pieces in X-formation with restrained moulding, although they were still occasionally used in Scandinavian and Spanish furniture.

Decorative Influences

Decoration was derived from Classical architectural motifs, Oriental patterns, and, in England, from Gothic designs. Oriental screens and lacquerwork were popular throughout the period. In colonial ports, japanning continued into the 1740's, while in France and England, lacquer panels were cut out of 17th century non fitted furniture and incorporated into mid 18th century pieces.

Motifs depicting Chinese figures and willow trees appeared in all the decorative arts, but particularly in mid-century mirror frames, when the Rococo style was at its peak.

The duchesse brisee

This has sumptuously upholstered cushions and a stool to support the legs. A new desire for comfort made the upholstered chair more popular.

  

The Commode

Commodes first appeared at the beginning of the century at the court of Louis XIV. The form was quickly adopted by other countries and adapted to their particular needs. The term itself comes from the French word for greater convenience, 'commodite'. The two drawer commode on tall legs was the first version, but by the Regence it usually had three or more drawers on short feet (commode a' la Regence).

During Louis XV's reign, the two drawer chest on two curved legs with curved sides was favoured. The facade was treated as a single decorative unit and the division between the drawers was ignored.

Commodes were frequently made with a matching pair of corner cupboards known as encoignures. Pieces with a vertical curve were known as 'bombe', while horizontal curves were called 'serpentine'.

18th Century Furniture

Exuberant Luxury
In the early 18th century, countries vied with each other to expand their empires and the aristocracy emphasized its position with lavish displays of wealth and luxury, including very expensive handmade furniture.

The first half of the 18th century was a time of transition, as the absolutist rule of monarchies diminished, paving the way for the rise of the wealthy middle classes. The end of the war of Spanish succession in 1713 changed the balance of power in Europe, and ushered in a period of relative peace. This and greater wealth gave the aristocracy more time to pursue their interests in education, science, and the arts.

New Building
Following extensive travels to the cultural centres of Europe, Peter the Great of Russia westernised his Court and began building the city of St. Petersburg, using the finest European craftsmen and designers.
Portugal grew wealthy on the spoils of the abundant diamonds and emeralds mined in its colony of Brazil. As a result, the Portuguese embarked on a massive programme of palace building with huge fitted furniture pieces and redecoration designed to glorify the monarchy, just a Louis XIV of France had done years before.
The accession of Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1740 heralded the Prussian rise to dominance in Northeast Europe. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, America began to emerge from the shadow of Britain and the Low Countries and started to develop a national identity and style of its own.

Age Of Reason
While Europe was mostly free from widespread wars, this was, nonetheless, a time of great change. It was the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, when writers and philosophers appealed to human reason and began to challenge traditional views on the church, the monarchy, education, and science.
Louis XIV's concept of the monarch as God's representative on Earth was replaced by more liberal views, resulting in a wealth of radical new ideas in the sciences and a burst of creativity in the arts.

Changing Styles
The more liberal cultural climate, compounded in many countries by an influx of craftsmen and designers from France, following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, ushered in a period of social change.
As well as lavish royal palaces, smaller mansions were built for the minor aristocracy and the rising middle classes, and there was an increased demand for more informal, elegant, and comfortable interiors.
The grandeur and austerity of the Baroque style gradually gave way to the more eclectic tastes of the early 18th century, resulting, in many countries, in the lighter, more delicate Rococo style that originated in France. Rooms were now decorated with wood panelling, delicate, swirling stucco work, and pale colours highlighted with gilding and mirrors.

French Marble Top Commode
18th Century, French kingwood and parquetry commode with beige mottled marble top. Large bronze hand pulls on two large drawers with two side corner bronze mounts and sabots on cabriole legs.

Italian Baroque Giltwood Carved Console Table

A Large Palatial Italian 18th/19th Century Baroque Style Finely Giltwood Carved Rectangular Console Table with an Egg-and-Dart Moulded Cornice and Heavily-Carved Scrolling Pierced
Foliate Frieze Centered by Cartouche with Arms of the Mastai Ferretti Family, on Scrolled Legs of this antique furniture console table Joined by Wavy "X" Stretcher on a Later Verde Antico Marble Top.