The Empire style originated in France in the late 18th century and spread throughout Europe, featuring mahogany furniture with classical shapes and ornamentation. In the 19th century, there was a revival of various historical styles including Gothic, Rococo, and Renaissance alongside new styles like Biedermeier that featured simpler classical designs. Furniture production became more standardized and industrialized during this time through the use of machine manufacturing, while designers continued to draw inspiration from diverse sources and movements.
2. History
•The Empire style began in Paris about the time of the
Revolution and quickly spread throughout Europe. In England it
is commonly called the Regency style. Two French
architects, Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine, who designed
the furnishings for the staterooms of Napoleon, contributed in
great measure to the creation of the style.
•Basically, the new style was a continuation of the Neoclassical
style, with a much stronger archaeological bias, leading to
direct copying of Classical types of furniture;
•Mahogany-veneered furniture with ormolu mounts assumed
the shapes of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian chairs and tables,
with winged-lion supports and pilasters headed with sphinxes’
busts or palm leaves; where no Classical prototypes existed,
contemporary designs were enlivened with Classical ornament.
•
3.
4. •In England, Thomas Hope, an amateur designer with some
knowledge of antiquities.
•Mahogany and rosewood were used with bronzed or gilt
ornament, and metal inlay, a cheaper technique, replaced
inlay and marquetry.
•Along with this style came a renewed enthusiasm for the
Chinese taste, as best exemplified in the furniture and
decoration
5. •By the 19th century, with increases in the efficiency
of transportation and communication, styles became more
universal in their adoption but still maintained national and
regional differences.
•In the United States the style was widely adopted. Its chief
native practitioner was the New York Duncan Phyfe, who in
the first decade of the century produced furniture for the
wealthy of his city
His designs gave a unique interpretation to Empire ideas.
French designers, such as Charles-Honoré Lannuier, emigrated
to the United States at this time and produced furniture in a
stricter French style.
6. •The Empire style, which carried over into the 19th century,
began a series of styles that revived form and decoration from
the past. The introduction of the machine and of the factory
method brought about a decline in quality in furniture
production.
•The Biedermeier style, which originated in Germany
and Austria, flourished in the prosperous middle-class homes
of Europe from about 1815 to 1848. This style is characterized
by classical simplicity. Chairs had curved legs, and sofas had
rolled arms and generous upholstery. Mahogany veneers and
light birch, grained ash, pear, and cherry were used. The
design and much of the ornament were influenced by the
Empire style, in particular the Grecian element. The style took
its name from “Papa Biedermeier,” a fictitious character
whose column, offering opinions on taste in furniture,
appeared in Austrian newspapers.
7. •In the 1820s there was a revival of the Gothic style, which in
England was partly stimulated by Romantic literature such as
the novels of Sir Walter Scott. In the mid-18th-century Gothic
revival, heavy medieval motifs were profusely and
indiscriminately applied to every type of furniture.
•A series of other revival styles followed the Gothic. The
Rococo revival was one of the most popular; it borrowed the
curvilinear elements of the French Louis XV style, especially
the cabriole leg. Entire suites of this furniture were fashioned
in mahogany, rosewood, and walnut, the price being highly
dependent upon the amount of carving on the frame.
•During the first half of the 19th century , metal springs were
introduced into furniture construction. The spring construction
made chairs and sofas much more comfortable than had the
stuffing employed by cabinetmakers during the 18th century.
8. •Another technical improvement introduced into furniture
design was the use of plywood. Plywood had great strength
and stability and could be more intricately curved than a
natural piece of wood.
•Michael Thonet an Austrian craftsman, experimented with
bending layers of veneer in Boppard, Germany. Thonet was
successful in perfecting a process for bending solid beechwood
by heat into curvilinear shapes. His chairs, popular during the
latter half of the 19th century, are still made.
•Elizabethan and Louis XIV revival furniture was also very
popular. The Baroque twisted upright was one of the chief
elements employed. The straight, turned leg was also
reintroduced.
•The Louis XVI style was reintroduced in suites of furniture
with round tapering legs, oval backs on chairs and sofas, and
elaborate upholstery.. The only wood visible on this furniture
was in the legs, the remainder of the frame being completely
upholstered.
9. •The English poet and artist William Morris has been called the
father of the modern movement. He turned for inspiration to
the handcraftsmanship of the Middle Ages and, based on his
own work on their designs and methods, attempted to revive a
respect for fine craftsmanship and to stir the aesthetic sense of
his contemporaries. His influence, though important, might
have been greater if, instead of turning away from the machine,
he had applied his high ideals to discovering a way in which
machines might be used to the best advantage. Morris’
followers in the field of cabinetmaking included such designer-
craftsmen as Ernest Gimson and the Barnsley family who,
working with a few assistants, produced small quantities of
high-quality handmade furniture.
10. •During the third quarter of the century, there was a
movement in England toward greater simplicity and aesthetic
beauty in furniture. The straight and simple lines of Japanese
design served as a source of inspiration. The result was the
aesthetic, or artistic, style; its chief exponents, producing both
designs and furniture, were Edward Godwin and Christopher
Dresser.
•Henry van de Velde, a Belgian architect and designer, followed
in the footsteps of William Morris and was the conscious
propagandist of the Art Nouveau style, which flourished from
about 1893 to 1910. Characterized by moving, sinuous curves,
the style found its inspiration in organic and natural forms and
in the Japanese prints that were so popular in Europe during
the third quarter of the 19th century. Van de Velde’s furniture
was often designed en suite so that it would give an effect of
totality to a room. The interiors of a house in Brussels, created
by another Belgian architect, Victor Horta, well illustrate the
sinuous curves and natural forms employed by the Art
Nouveau designers. The movement was also adopted in France
where Hector Guimard was one of its chief exponents. A
variant of the style is seen in furniture produced by the Scottish
architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
12. Gothic revival
Some of the more notable features of Gothic-
style furniture include the renowned pointed
arches, gargoyles, rosettes, real and imaginary
animals and misshapen figures. The bell flower,
a floral motif with three or four lobes and a bell
in the hollow center, was another
common Gothic ornamentation.
Running parallel with the Renaissance Revival
style—and containing many of the same
elements, confusingly—was Gothic Revival.
Pointed tops, spiky pilasters, arches, and
rosette motifs tended to distinguish the style—
even if these elements originally decorated
medieval cathedrals rather than furniture.
13. Egyptian Revival Style furniture
Antiquity was already a popular influence in
furniture around the turn of the 19th century.
But Napoleon Bonaparte's conquests in Egypt
sparked a mania for motifs and silhouettes
that specifically reflected the civilization of
the Nile: pharaohs, barges,
sphinxes. Egyptiennerie, as the French called
it, is a component of the overall Empire style
(named for Emperor Napoleon's reign).
14. Greek Revival Style
Along with Egypt, Empire furniture plundered styles
(monopodium tables, klismos chairs) and motifs (lyres,
caryatids) from ancient Greece and Rome. While the Empire
period lasted throughout much of the first half of the 19th
century, the term Greek Revival—also known as Classicism—
often refers more specifically towards the end of this period,
when the furniture became heavier and less ornate—the
antique influence more in the overall shape than in decoration
or motifs.
15. Rococo Revival Style
Furniture of the Rococo Revival period hearkened
back to the mid-18th century and the reign of Louis
XV. Made of walnut, mahogany, or rosewood,
tables, chairs and sofas have cabriole legs and
often feature naturalistic carvings of fruit, flowers,
and leaves. Curvaceous shapes ruled: the fronts of
dressers are often serpentine-shaped and the
corners are rounded; leaf or fruit carved pulls
decorate the drawers. The cabinetmaker who put
Rococo Revival on the map was John Henry Belter,
a New York manufacturer who used a technique of
laminating the wood—usually rosewood—and
then forming it into the scrolls and curves so
beloved by 18th century French designers—though
they might have found his lavish use of them a
bit de trop.
16. Renaissance Revival Style
Attributes of the Renaissance Revival style are turned and
fluted legs, raised, or inset burled panels, heavily carved
finials and crests, inset marble tops, and cookie-cut corners.
Many pieces are further decorated by black and gold incising,
marquetry inlay and bronze or brass mounts. These pieces
were often gargantuan—ideal for the Victorian "more is more"
philosophy. The preferred wood was walnut, as it had been in
the 1500s—and that was the most accurate thing about this
revival style, which also borrowed heavily from the 17th-
century Baroque and the earlier Gothic periods.
18. Price: Rs. 16,400
Weight: 32 KG
Primary Material: Engineered Wood
Room Type: Living Room
Single Futon Sofa Cum Bed with
Mattress in Green & Grey Colour
20. Price: Rs. 6300
Brand: Bohemiana
Weight: 6.3 KG
Colour: Provincial Teak
Primary Material: Fabric
Room Type: Living Room
Fabric : Cotton
Frame : Mango Wood
Pouffe with Base in Provincial Teak Finish by Bohemiana
21. Bella Upholstered Ottoman With Storage In Blue & White
Colour
Brand: Muebles Casa
Dimensions: H 17 x W 18 x D 18
(all dimensions in inches)
Weight: 15 Kgs KG
Primary Material: Fabric
Room Type: Living Room
Storage: With Storage
