Ecritoire of Navy 19th century mahogany

Biography

19th century style
This century does not have a unified style, we refer to it for convenience. Under the reigns of Louis XVIII (1814-1824) and Charles X (1824-1830), the Empire style remained in force. Some of the best pieces attributable to this so-called Restoration style belong to the domain of seats and tables. Typical are gondola seats, seats with reversed or concave backs, double scroll armrests and saber legs. Light tables with lyre-shaped or X-shaped bases generally have a pleasant design. When it comes to chests of drawers and other similar pieces, Empire shapes remain in force, heavy and massive. Added to mahogany, lighter woods, such as maple and lemon, were very popular. Marquetry itself was abandoned in favor of inlays; thus amaranth could bring a striking contrast to a light background and vice versa. This process largely replaced the practice of applying bronzes to furniture. To tell the truth, most of the inlays reproduce, simplified, the designs of the Empire bronzes. The so-called Charles X style survived the end of the reign of the monarch who gave it its name, deposed during the July Revolution (1830).
The reign of his successor, Louis Philippe (1830-1848), also of the House of Bourbons, saw a singular evolution of styles in which the Empire, the Gothic, the Renaissance and the Baroque Louis XIV were mixed with a predilection for Boulle marquetry. However, around 1840, perhaps even earlier, it was particularly the Louis unified style, but an interesting network of diverse imitations inspired by the cult devoted to France's past artisanal traditions.
The most interesting pieces reveal quality work, such as that of a Fourdinois who worked for Napoleon III and the elite of society. The Second Empire is characterized by furniture that is often very ostentatious and ornate, but also of astonishing variety and vitality. The desire for luxury is very clearly visible in the padded padding decorated with fringes which leave no trace of the wood of the frames. Late in the 19th century, a movement aimed at freeing furniture from the traditional styles of the past and creating a new style crystallized in Art Nouveau, proposing a new "naturalist" approach to art, with nature as its main source of inspiration.
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