The Empire Style - The Netherlands.

The Netherlands
Napoleon adopted the same policy in the Netherlands as elsewhere by installing, in 1805, a member of his family as king - in this case, his brother Louis, who took the job seriously, tried to protect the country's interests and was forced to abdicate in 1810. There was barely time for him to get the old Town Hall in Amsterdam refurbished in 1808-09 with large quantities of handmade furniture in the Empire style, much of which is still on view there.

Some of it was made in Paris and taken to Holland, but most was produced locally and, although conforming in broad terms to the international Empire style, a distinct Dutch accent can be detected in the sturdiness of construction and the attention to detail of pieces made by Carel Breytspraak, who had become a master of the St Joseph's Guild in 1795. The commode he supplied for the apartments of the Crown Prince in 1809 has panelled ends and a moulding around the edges of the drawer-fronts - both features being a little reminiscent of traditional Netherlands fitted and non fitted furniture dating back to the 17th century. Breytspraak, who was of German descent, died the following year. A supplier of seat furniture for the Napoleonic royal family was Joseph Cuel, he is described as an upholsterer and may have ordered the frames from a number of joiners as the quantity he had to supply in a short time was a large one.

After the Napoleonic are, the Empire style was continued during the reign of William I, for whom the Royal Palace at the Hague was largely refurnished in 1818. A local cabinet-maker, G. Nordanus, supplied a variety of pieces in mahogany. For the general public, many pieces were made at this time with severe carcase shapes in the Empire style, but lavishly decorated with the traditional floral marquetry. Tall chests of drawers flanked by columns, and with the top drawer projecting slightly, were especially popular. Sabre-legged chairs of simple shapes with flat rails to the backs, of the kind decorated with brass inlay in England, were often embellished with flower arrangements in contrasting woods.

The Empire Style - Spain & Portugal

Spain and Portugal
The Spanish version of the Empire style in known as Fernandino. Prince Ferdinand was arrested in 1807 for plotting to kill his father and mother. The scandal provided Napoleon with an excuse to increase the size of his army in Spain, put his brother on the throne and place Ferdinand under military guard for six years, during the War of Independence. By 1814, when Joseph had retired from the fray and Napoleon knew that his position in Spain was untenable, he had little choice but to release Ferdinand, who then reigned in a thoroughly reactionary way until 1833. This brief summary of events gives no idea of the suffering of the Spanish people during this period, but it may suggest the pattern of turmoil against which it is surprising that and handmade furniture at all was made.

Before the Napoleonic invasion, furniture in the severe Directiore style was fashionable, but under Joseph Bonaparte this gave way to the full Empire treatment, in which an extensive repertoire of ornament derived from antiquity, in carved and gilt wood or gilded bronze, was exploited - sometimes with more enthusiasm than discretion. A desk made for the King in the royal palace, Madrid, has that favourite Empire device, a large swan in full relief, as a support at each of the four corners. As turned legs are employed in addition, the swans look as though they have arrived almost by accident.

Chairs have stuffed seats and padded backs, surmounted by carved and gilt cresting rails. Sofas, especially, are comfortable - in spite of rather forbidding, overstated sphinx supports to the arms. The style gradually gave way to the Gothic Revival about 1830.

In Portugal a heavy version of the French Empire style influenced the production of fitted and non fitted furniture from around 1805, surprisingly enough in view of the unpopularity of the French invaders who had marched through Spain. After the expulsion of Napoleon's army in 1811 there was a swing towards the late Georgian and Regency styles of the English liberators. After c.1820, German influence at court encouraged a preference for the Biedermeier style.

The Empire Style - Italy.

Italy
Many important elements of the Empire style, such as a bold use of animal forms for supports, were adopted for luxurious handmade furniture in Italy before they had become fully accepted in France, and continued to be fashionable long after the fall of Napoleon. During the period of the French Empire proper, various members of his family on whom the Emperor had bestowed titles were busy redecorating their new, palatial homes in a manner that would do honour to their august relative. His sister Elisa Baciocchi had a workshop set up in Florence where, under the direction of a craftsmen called Youff, brought for the purpose from Paris, furniture in the Empire style was produced by French cabinet-makers - much of it still to be seen in the Palazzo Pitti, along with that of the most distinguished native Italian cabinet-maker of the period, the Florentine Giovanni Socchi (fl. 1805 - 1815), who was a protege of Elisa's.

Symbolic of Napoleon's military triumphs is a set of marble-topped cylindrical cupboards designed to look like drums and resting on feet formed as pine cones. This drum-like conception occurs again, though less obviously, in a type of desk made by Socchi which, when closed, appears to be an oval table with six very deep drawers side by side, standing on six splayed legs spaced around the perimeter, and one vertical one at the centre. The whole construction stands on an oval plinth. All this opens up to form a writing table and chair, one of the false drawer-fronts being the outside of the chair-back which, when drawn out, reveals the seat resting on two of the splayed legs plus the vertical one. The top of the table divides, the two halves sliding sideways to reveal an extending writing leaf and an inkstand that springs up into position. The entire piece of wizardry is veneered in contrasting dark and light woods and is mounted with lions' heads in gilt bronze. Socchi made and signed at least four of these ingenious novelties.

Pelagio Palagi (1775 - 1860), who was born in Bologna and trained there as a painter, went to Rome to work on the conversion of the Quirinal into a palace for Napoleon in 1806. Deeply imbued with the spirit of Neoclassicism but affected too by the Romantic movement, he was still designing fitted and non fitted furniture in the Empire style for the Palazzo Reale in Turin as late as 1836. This post-Empire manner, with an emphasis on carved and gilded lions and eagles rather than on the severe outlines and flush surfaces of the original style, became the official mode thought suitable for the furnishing of private palaces and public buildings in many parts of Italy during the first half of the 19th century.

Furniture for the middle classes displays some of the same liking for sculptural qualities in carved and applied decoration on tables and chairs especially, but tends more to the solemn manner of the Austrian Biedermeier style for commodes, wardrobes, cylinder-top bureaux and other carcase pieces.

The Empire Style - Russia

Russia
The Empire period in Russia was covered by the reign of Alexander I (1801 - 1825), at the commencement of which the Directoire style was adopted in St. Petersburg for handmade furniture of severe yet bold outline - especially noticeable in the somewhat exaggerated, mushroom-like profiles of chair backs. Pale coloured woods, particularly Karelian birch, were used extensively and perhaps rather earlier than in Austria, Germany and France, where they were later to become very fashionable under the general heading of bois clair. 

After Napoleon's retreat in 1812, furniture was made in considerable quantities in Russia, and so much was imported that even Russian authorities found it difficult to decide what was truly Russian and which pieces were brought in from Central Europe. The situation is further complicated by the influence of foreign architects such as Thomas de Thomon from Switzerland - itself a meeting place of many currents of fashion, leading to eclecticism - and Carlo Rossi from Italy, both of whom imposed their own brands of the second-phase Neoclassical style on the native product. There are, however, some strikingly handsome pieces which, for all their air of cosmopolitan sophistication, could hardly be mistaken for anything other than Russian. Most notable of these are centre-tables with circular tops of malachite reposing on central columns mounted in gilded bronze.

In the 1820s new types of fitted and non fitted furniture were designed by a group of architects led by Rossi and Vasily Stasov. A distinguished group of cabinet-makers, all working in St. Petersburg, included Vasily Bobkov, Franz Grosse, Johann Boumann, and Heinrich Gambs. The shapes of many pieces display originality and a wide range of woods was used, including mahogany, birch, poplar, walnut and Brazilian amaranth. Chairs and settees were often upholstered in silk or woollen cloth, both materials being embroidered with floral patterns.

The Empire Style - Sweden, Denmark & Norway

Sweden
Sweden had finally abandoned neutrality and fought with Russian and Prussian troops against Napoleon, but it was Jean Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's marshals, who became king of Sweden and reigned as Charles XIV John from 1818 - 1844. Although in many ways similar to the style of Hetsch in Denmark, the Empire style in Sweden came nearer to the French original, especially in the hands of the court cabinet-maker in Stockholm, Lorentz Wilhelm Lundelius (1787 - 1859). In the more modest range, a peculiarity of Swedish handmade furniture of this period is that drawer-fronts, when veneered on a pine foundation as they so often are, do not have the top edge masked with a veneer or a 'cock-beading', as is the case with the furniture of most other countries using an otherwise similar construction.

Marquetry was used more extensively during the Empire period than in France and Paris, especially during the earlier years, in place of bronze mounts. Later it was replaced with motifs carved in mahogany and glued to the surface. Less expensive decorations were made in moulds from a mixture of sawdust and glue - an early version of 'plastic wood' that may be seen as a symptom of declining standards.

Denmark and Norway
Early examples of archaeologically inspired, 'second-phase Neoclassical' furniture were designed in Denmark by Nikolai Abraham Abildgaard (1743 - 1809) who had it made for himself around 1800, finding his inspiration in the shapes depicted on Greek vases. In 1807 he produced a scheme, somewhat less academic, for Prince Christian Frederick.

The taste for English styles suffered a traumatic setback as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars, soon after the commencement of which a pact of armed neutrality between Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway led to a bombardment of Copenhagen by the British who were anxious that the Danish fleet should not fall into French hands. Norway and Denmark, which had been politically tied, were now separated by the British blockade.

There was, however, one piece of furniture of English type which was very popular in Denmark, in spite of politics. This was the sofa table, a rectangular shape and with a drop leaf supported on hinged brackets at each end. This occasionally stood on four tapered legs but much more often it rested on either a central column or on end supports of 'slab' or lyre form. Danish homes did not normally have rooms set aside for dining. The sofa table stood in front of the sofa and was used for meals, the china for which was kept in a pair of pedestal cupboards, one standing at each end of the sofa. The usual place for storing cutlery was the upper section of the chatol, a bureau-cabinet having a cylinder top to the bureau section and an upper stage of break-front form.

As in France, imported woods became scarce because of the war, and various native timbers took their place; birch, carefully selected and cut, was an excellent understudy for satinwood which came from the East and West Indies, and is often mistaken for it. A taste for using boldly contrasting woods was satisfied by employing burr alder in association with birch - a feature sometimes seen in geometrically designed commodes. The middle drawer in a bank of three is deeper than the other two, and has a lunette-shaped recess set in it, veneered in wood different from the rest. Metal mounts were seldom used and, as in Germany, even handles were commonly regarded as superfluous.

For construction, pine was the main material for carcases, but the better-class pieces were provided with oak drawer linings. the continuing peasant tradition depended almost entirely on pine. In most countries, pine fitted and non fitted furniture has proved vulnerable to woodworm, but apart from a few areas, Norwegian pieces are remarkably free of the pest - probably because of the Norwegian practice of regularly scrubbing all the furniture with soap and water, and removing the eggs of the beetle in the process.

A post-Empire fashion for mahogany furniture gradually spread through Scandinavia, one of the principal designers being Gustav Friedrich Hetsch, professor at the Copenhagen Academy and later (1828 - 1857) director of the Royal Porcelain Factory. He had worked with Percier in Paris and absorbed his scholarly but romantic approach to the late Neoclassical style.

The Empire Style, Poland

Having lost their independence at the end of the 18th century to Russia, Prussia and Austria, the Poles entertained high hopes of deliverance by Napoleon and followed him loyally even after the disaster of 1812, their leader Prince Poniatwoski losing his life in covering the retreat from Leipzig. The partition being confirmed by the Congress of Vienna, only a small area - the 'Congress Kingdon' with the Russian Tsar as king - emerged with a national identity in 1815. Here, and in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the distinctive furnishing style known as 'Simmler' evolved, taking its name from a leading family of makers of whom Andreas Simmler had been the first to come to Poland from Germany. The Simmler style combines Neoclassical designs of handmade furniture drawn from various sources - German, French and English. Many of the chairs and settees have an elegance which suggest familiarity with the designs of Thomas Sheraton, while others are nearer to those of the Jacob family in Paris. Andreas Simmler having originally worked for Roentgen at Neuwied, this influence was also handed down to the next generation.

After the Simmlers, the best-known makers in the Congress Kingdom were Friedrich and Johann Daniel Heurlich, whose style was nearer to the Austrian Biedermeier school but rather more decorative, carving of a slightly old fashioned king being extensively employed.

Although Cracow was a free city republic, Austrian influence was dominant, and here the Biedermeier style was to develop in a way quite close to that of Vienna. A tradition continued there uninterruptedly until the early years of this century, however, which manages to ignore political upheavals and foreign influences. This was the making of bridal chests, painted by specialists some of whom are known by name. Even the poorest families tries to provide such a chest to hold their daughter's dowry, and these basic, ritualistic yet cheerful articles express better than any souvenir of Napoleonic grandeur the pride of place that a piece of fitted or non fitted furniture can occupy in the affections, as well the home, of its owners.

The Empire Style - Germany & Austria

The Empire style followed Napoleon and his armies across Europe. David Roentgen, endeavouring to save something from the wreck which the French Revolution had made of his business, adopted a simplified and dignified version of second-phase Neoclassicism for the palaces of Berlin. At Wurzburg c.1808 - 1812, Johann Valentin Raab produced numerous pieces of handmade furniture in which swan shaped supports played a vital part. This feature was adopted with much enthusiasm in the Germanic countries, swans in triplicate forming the strands of circular tables resting on shaped plinths known as 'platform' bases, while swans in duplicate appear very frequently on the arms of armchairs and comfortably upholstered settees.

In Prussia, a distinctive version of the style was evolved by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781 - 1841) who, after studying at the Berlin Academy, travelled in Italy and Austria, visiting Paris en route and returning to Berlin in 1805 to begin a career as a painter, but also as a designer of furniture and ultimately of buildings. The bedroom furniture he designed for the Charlottenburg Palace in 1809 succeeds in being original without sacrificing elegance to novelty - a trap into which so many designers of fitted and non fitted furniture have been prone to fall. The woods used were mainly beech and pear, carved to simulate the hanging folds of the bed linen. In 1817, he designed a set of chairs for Prince Friedrich of Prussia, in which the backs are composed of rounded pads connected to an outer frame with turned members. Many of his chairs are carefully thought out to provide maximum comfort and convenience. One model even includes a moveable reading stand for books, attached to the arm of the chair. In spite of this practicality, his work is imbued with the spirit of Romanticism which was, in the first decade of the 19th century, presenting Gothic Revival designs alongside the most pedantic of Neoclassical models. However, just as the first phase of Neoclassicism had borrowed heavily from the repertoire of antique ornament, without attempting to reproduce the shapes or forms of ancient furniture, so the early Romantic school was content to employ 'Gothic' motifs - pointed arches, crocketing and crenellated cornices - without trying to copy actual pieces of medieval furniture.

Typical pieces of furniture related to the Empire style in Germany are 'high-waisted' corner-cupboards (i.e. with the upper stage less than half the height of the whole); bookcases, their doors with glazing bars representing crossed arrows; bedside cupboards which splay outwards towards the base, like an obelisk with the top sawn off; the fall-front secretaire which often had a third deck of small drawers placed on top of the carcase, making it rather heavily architectural; a type of three-drawer commode, the top drawer projecting forwards a little and appearing to be supported by herms with sphinx heads, and either fitted with brass handles of octagonal, oval or round pattern, or with no handles at all - a sacrifice in the cause of purity in design making for considerable inconvenience if the key happens to get lost.

In Vienna, Johann Haertl adapted the lyre shape, already widely popular for chair backs, to carcase pieces, of which cabinets with fronts following a lyre-shaped profile are perhaps the most original. As often before, Austria found the secret of carrying a fashionable style to its logical conclusion in a way that should, according to all the laws of good design, have resulted in utter disaster, but instead proved charming if a little eccentric.

In 1804, Josef Danhauser opened a factory where furniture in the Empire style was made for such members of the nobility as the Duke Albert von Sachsen-Teschen and the Archduke Karl. Before his death in 1830, Danhauser had successfully developed large-scale production of a more functional, less costly range of post Empire furniture for the middle classes. Around 2,500 of his designs are preserved in the Osterreichisches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst in Vienna. The style was emotionally linked to a school of literature and drama known - at first derisively - as Biedermeier, bieder being the German word for 'upright' or 'honourable'.

The Empire Style - France - Part 3 (final part)

Marquetry was little used, and the finely-tooled bronze mounts of the Louis XVI period were replaced with ones which, for all but the most expensive pieces, were cast and burnished but not chiselled by hand. They were applied sparingly, and followed the general trend towards rather austere Grecian motifs, such as the laurel wreath. A little further down the scale, bronze was too costly and stamped brass took its place, particularly for the capitals of columns used for flanking carcase pieces - commodes, secretaires and chiffoniers. About 1800, the chiffoniere or small chest-of-drawers underwent a change of sex and emerged as the chiffonier, a small cabinet with cupboard below, a drawer and a shelf with decorative supports
above.

The guilds had been abolished in 1791, but the handmade furniture industry was as active during the Napoleonic period as it had ever been. Around 10,000 people were employed in it in Paris, one employer alone - Jacob-Desmalter - having 350 on his wage bill. He was the son of Georges Jacob, who formally handed over the business to his sons in 1796. They traded as Jacob Freres until the death of Georges the younger in 1803. The father had come out of retirement in 1800, and worked in partnership with his son Francois, who called himself Jacob-Desmalter (de Desmalter being a Burgundian patronym). They were the most important makers of the age in France, executing the designs of Percier and Fontaine for the Emperor and manufacturing large quantities of good quality, distinctive furniture, much of it in mahogany, for less distinguished clients. Their work represents a continuation of the style adopted by Georges Jacob during the late Louis XVI period, rather than a revolutionary break with tradition.

Many other cabinet-makers survived the changing circumstances, notably some of the Germans, including Beneman and Weisweiler. Henri Jacob (1753 - 1824) - a cousin of Georges - imitated the celebrated family style and cashed in on the name, but his work is not as fine. P. Brion made some very grand fitted and non fitted furniture for Napoleon's apartments at Fontainebleau, while J. Louis produced large quantities of sabre-legged chairs and other more modest furniture for the middle-class market.

These simpler versions of Neoclassical types in the manner of Louis and La Mesangere did not end with the fall of Napoleon, but continued after the restoration of the monarchy when, in 1815, ten days after Waterloo, the House of Bourbon returned to the throne in the person of Louis XVIII, who was followed by his brother Charles X (reigned 1824 - 1830). Fewer bronze mounts were used, and there was a preference for light-coloured woods (bois clair) such as maple for furniture in a style similar to that of Schinkel in Prussia, or to Austrian Biedermmeier. The quality of bourgeois furniture gradually deteriorated with the ever-increasing use of steam-driven machinery and the commercialisation of the furniture industry, which was encouraged by a series of exhibitions. That presented at the Louvre in 1819 marked, as decisively as any such event can, the end of an epoch. It may be some small consolidation to know that the two great architects of the Empire style survived the downfall of their patron. Fontaine worked as an architect and Percier as a teacher. Their friendship survived, too, and they were buried in the same tomb.