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The furniture of Louis XIV was massive and lavishly covered with sculpture and ornament of gilded bronze in the earlier part of the personal rule of King Louis XIV of France (1660–1690). After about 1690, thanks in large part to the furniture designer André Charles Boulle, a more original and delicate style appeared, sometimes ...
Although Boulle provided quite a few pieces of furniture for the royal household, only two items intended specifically for Louis XIV have been identified: a pair of commodes made between 1708 and 1709 for the king’s bedroom at the Grand Trianon and now exhibited at the Château de Versailles.
Learn about the history and styles of French seat furniture from the Baroque to the Neoclassical period, with examples from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. See how the shape, decoration, and function of chairs changed over time and across regions.
The Court of Louis XIV was officially established at Versailles in 1682, but the Sun King continued to use his palaces in Fontainebleau, Compiègne and Marly – and wherever he went, the decoration and furnishings had to be fit for a king.
The era of King Louis XIV, or Louis Quatorze, marked the definite end of the Renaissance period in France and the beginning of a series of distinct period furniture styles, the first being the enormously influential Baroque.
Some of the most beautiful and refined furniture ever made, displaying the highest level of artistic and technical ability, was created in Paris during the eighteenth century. Much admired by an international clientele, it was used to furnish residences all over Europe and also influenced fashions of cabinetmaking outside France.
Louis XIV’s “one body” was like clockwork, and all time in his presence was ceremonialized time. The chronological development of Louis XIV’s lever du roi supports the conclusions suggested by earlier historians of royal ritual in France.
