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.