From the beginning of the 18th century, French furniture moved into the Regency period. During this time, French style furniture started to take on the beautiful swirling motifs of the Rococo style. Although veneering had been popular prior to this period, the French furniture makers of the 18th century started to use a selection of different woods for one item, in order to provide a striking contrast between the different grains that would be highly visible through the perfect veneers. Walnut would be coupled with rosewood, or rosewood with mahogany - whatever combination was used, it lent an even greater feeling of extravagance and opulence to these beautiful French furniture items.
Later on in the 1700s, curved lines remained popular, as did the inclusion of asymmetry which was used in order to create a more eye-catching effect on otherwise practical items of French furniture. Chinese methods were also starting to be incorporated into the design with lacquering being one incredibly well used technique.
French furniture design also started to become much more clever. The French, like many at the time, were incredibly secretive people, which led to the creation of unseen little nooks and hiding places being built into items. More and more new styles of French furniture started to be developed, such as roll top desks and furniture created purely for the ladies, such as dressing tables or chairs with shorter armrests. Wooden paneling also became a popular feature of French style furniture during this time, and cherry and beech started to be used as alternative woods. In fact, by this point in French furniture history, they were nearly 100 different types of exotic woods being employed to provide a variety of colours and contrasts. Cherry was favoured due to the fact it was a good wood for carving, enabling evermore intricate and beautiful patterns to be created.
The natural and mythical themes continued to be prevalent in the decoration of French style furniture, with additional, more coastal influences such as seashells also being used. More and more bronze was employed, and springs were often used in order to facilitate the easy opening and closing of hidden drawers and cupboards.
As we follow the history of French furniture into the Empire period (1804-1815) we notice more Egyptian influences being used, with the addition of heavy marble tops which would provide both a lavish and affluent feel, as well as offering a practical tabletop that would be hard to damage. The symbols of Napoleon, including an eagle and a bee were often used to decorate these pieces. Later in the 19th century, machinery started to be developed that could create softer, more rounded shapes. French style furniture by this time was an incredibly beautiful array of a variety of different materials and influences, all coming together since the inception of these incredibly grand and showy items. Perhaps the only real loss for the world of French furniture was that the craftsmen who were originally employed to lavish their talents upon these pieces were much less used, now that the French furniture making industry had become much more mechanised.
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