United States or Heard Island and McDonald Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The furniture was made to agree with this decorative treatment: couches and easy chairs were designed in more sweeping curves and on a smaller scale, the woodwork wholly or partially gilt and upholstered, not only with the tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais, but with soft colored silk brocades and brocatelles; light occasional chairs were enriched with mother-of-pearl or marqueterie; screens were painted with love scenes and representations of ladies and gentlemen who look as if they passed their entire existence in the elaboration of their toilettes or the exchange of compliments; the stately cabinet is modified into the bombé fronted commode, the ends of which curve outwards with a graceful sweep; and the bureau is made in a much smaller size, more highly decorated with marqueterie, and more fancifully mounted to suit the smaller and more effeminate apartment. The smaller and more elegant cabinets, called Bonheur du jour (a little cabinet mounted on a table); the small round occasional table, called a gueridon; the encoignure, or corner cabinet; the étagère, or ornamental hanging cabinet, with shelves; the three-fold screen, with each leaf a different height, and with shaped top, all date from this time. The chaise
On the one hand, it had none of that affectation of superior taste evinced in marqueterie and gilding, or the more picturesque discomfort of high-backed chairs and mediaeval curiosities which prevails in the daintier abodes of fastidious bachelors; nor, on the other hand, had it the sporting character which individualizes the ruder juveniles qui gaudent equis, betrayed by engravings of racers and celebrated fox-hunts, relieved, perhaps, if the Nimrod condescend to a cross of the Lovelace, with portraits of figurantes, and ideals of French sentiment entitled, "Le Soir," or "La Reveillee," "L'Espoir," or "L'Abandon."
A kind of minute mosaic work in wood, which was called "Tunbridge Wells work," became fashionable for small articles. Within the last ten or fifteen years the reproductions of what is termed "Chippendale," and also Adam and Sheraton designs in marqueterie furniture, have been manufactured to an enormous extent.
He entered a wide 'porte cochere, and was directed by the concierge to mount 'au premier. There, first detained in an office faultlessly neat, with spruce young men at smart desks, he was at length admitted into a noble salon, and into the presence of a gentleman lounging in an easy-chair before a magnificent bureau of 'marqueterie, genre Louis Seize, engaged in patting a white curly lapdog, with a pointed nose and a shrill bark.
The Louis Quinze cabinets were inlaid, not only with natural woods, but with veneers stained in different tints; and landscapes, interiors, baskets of flowers, birds, trophies, emblems of all kinds, and quaint fanciful conceits are pressed into the service of marqueterie decoration. Carlin, Leleu, and others, whose names will be found in a list in the appendix. Upholstered with Beauvais tapestry.
Dunbar Place was a stately colonial house, set in a large demesne, and all Kent County waited breathless to know what revelations the heiress would make to it, in the way of equi-pages, marqueterie furniture, or Paris gowns. Mrs. Waldeaux found Lucy one day, a month after her arrival, seated at her sewing on the broad, rose-covered piazza, looking as if she never had left it.
But an old curiosity-shop, with bronzes, china, marqueterie, point-lace, and armour, embraced at once a few centuries; and he thought of the feudal times, the fifteenth century, the belle of former days, the amber-headed cane and snuff box of the beaux who sought her smiles, all gone, all dust; the workmanship of the time, even portions of their dresses, still existing everything less perishable than man.
Every article of furniture was of old marqueterie, adapted to modern uses, the appointments of the writing-table were of solid silver Lucy had eagerly ascertained the fact by looking at the 'marks' and as for the towels, she simply could not have imagined that such things were made! Her little soul was in a whirl of envy, admiration, pride.
In other rooms artisans are at work upon various tasks of marqueterie, table-tops, album-covers, paper-weights, brooches, pins and the like, and in others they are sawing the smalts and glass into strips, and grinding the edges.
As he took his latch-key out of the lock, and turned up the electric light, he saw two handsome marqueterie chairs standing in the hall. He went to look at them in some perplexity. Ah! no doubt they had been sent as specimens. Letty had grown dissatisfied with the chairs originally bought for the dining-room.
Word Of The Day