Carved decoration of flowers and shells were employed at carefully spaced intervals on some examples, but many were relieved only with carved mouldings that emphasized the rhythmic sweep. Seat and back were usually upholstered in silk or tapestry. If the arms of an armchair are enclosed, and if the seat is supplied with a loose cushion, the type is properly knows as a 'bergere'. (This term is traditionally used differently on English handmade furniture, to mean a chair with canework on arms and back). When the arms of the chair are left open, and there is no cushion for the seat, then the armchair is termed a 'fauteuil'.
There is an extensive vocabulary to cover the variety of settees or sofas. Collectively they are known as 'canapes'. The canape-a-confident was curved so that two people could half-face each other in conversation. Alternative names are 'causeuse' and 'tete-a-tete'. The marquise was a straight-fronted type, while the duchesse consisted of two or three separate items that could be put together; a long-seated bergere could be combined with a bergere of normal proportions, or two bergeres could face each other with a stool between them; either system resulted in a form of day-bed. There are many other terms for types of settees, though each name may not always be used to mean exactly the same type. The Rue de Clery was a centre for the making of fitted and non fitted furniture incorporating seats in the mid 18th century, and housed several generations of important makers including the Foliot, Cresson and Blanchard families.
Stools (tabourets) had a special significance at court, being occupied by ladies while in the king's presence. Madame de Pompadour was accorded her tabouret only on becoming a duchess. less formally, stools were made en suite with chairs and settees.
The cabinet-on-stand went out of fashion during the Louis XV period, as did most tall pieces of salon furniture. The most important prestige piece was the commode, reaching only up to dado level so that a mirror or picture could be hung over it. Although it usually conformed to the type with two drawers already described, it was sometimes fitted as a cupboard with two doors decorated with marquetry or lacquer, the panels framed in complex, opposing C-scrolls of gilded bronze. A variation on the cabinet-commode, which was also an exception to the general preference for low wall-pieces, was the cartonnier, a dwarf cabinet with an upper stage of open shelves, sometimes surmounted by a clock built into the frame.
A clock was also a feature in the superstructure of a corner cabinet (encoignure) with cupboard-base and open shelves above in a design by Pineau, closely followed c.1750 by Jacques Dubois (c.1693 - 1763). More often however, the encoignure was a dwarf piece with no superstructure. It was sometimes veneered or lacquered, or made in the solid and panelled to match the walls of the room.
The cartonnier also appeared in another form as an adjunct to a flat-topped writing table, the bureau-plat, which replaced the heavier looking bureau-Mazarin of the Louis XIV period. The bureau-plat was basically a simple construction of a table top on four cabriole legs, with drawers concealed in the frieze; in practice it became a highly impressive item of furniture, now reproduction furniture, the top of separate shapes on all four sides, the legs mounted in gilded bronze, with matching handles to the drawers. The type was much copied, often extremely well, in the 19th century. A notable mid 18th century example by Pierre Roussel (1723 - 1782) is in the Louvre.
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