November, 19 19 
31 
Walnut spiral turned legs 
and stretchers are seen in 
this Louis XIII table 
Late llth Century Louis 
XIV table with tapered 
legs and rising stretcher 
The Louis XVI style was characterized by 
a reversion to rectilinear principles alike in 
structure and decoration, a return to Classic 
motifs of embellishment, and a spirit of greater 
order and reasoned restraint. The short-lived 
Directoire style which immediately followed it 
might be described as Louis Seize reduced to 
its lowest terms in Classicism. In other words, 
it was the Louis XVI style very much chas¬ 
tened and freed of all the playful qualities 
that had been gracefully mingled with the 
dominant Classicism and had given the mode 
its peculiar vivacity. The Directoire was not 
Walnut armchair of the beginning of 
the 17 th Century, with scroll legs and 
saltire stretcher 
sense has conceived an aversion to the whole 
period. It is quite true that in this prolific 
age when the “lid came off” with a bang, the 
purveyors to fads and rages, aided and abetted 
by wealthy and capricious patrons, committed 
the grossest decorative excesses. At the same 
time, the truth cannot be too strongly empha¬ 
sized that the Louis XV style, shorn of its 
absurdities and tempered by a reasonable re¬ 
straint, produced a great deal of furniture and 
decoration of sterling merit. Nor should we 
lose sight of the fact that there was a large 
amount of this sane and tempered Louis XV 
furniture, considerably more in the aggregate 
than there was of the other sort. The accom¬ 
panying illustrations are confined to the latter 
category. 
Carved oak, panel back, side 
chair. Middle of 16 th Century 
Louis XIV gilt armchair with tapered 
legs, saltire stretcher and square gad- 
rooned feet 
less elegant, but was more severe, and tolerated 
nothing for which there was not some real or 
fancied precedent in Greek or Roman usage. 
The Empire style, the last in the 18th Cen¬ 
tury cycle, though deriving its inspiration from 
the same Classic sources as the Louis XVI 
and Directoire styles, was wholly different in 
its manifestation. It exploited all the bom¬ 
bastic and military elements that could be 
drawn from the storehouse of Classic antiquity, 
emphasized them, and indeed often exaggerated 
them. While the expressions of the Empire 
style were invariably bold and impressive, they 
were often handsome without being elegant; 
modesty and restraint were rarely achieved and 
the pieces designed at this time were conspicu- 
(Continued on page 94) 
Walnut pillar-legged table with stretcher and arcaded supports. Sec¬ 
ond half of 16 th Century. South Kensington Museum 
Carved walnut truss-end table with characteristic Renaissance detail. 
Middle of 16 th Century. White strip above arcading is open 
