The Difference Between French Regency Parisian Style Furniture and Country Style Furniture
The main production centre of Regency furniture was Paris, which set an example throughout France and other parts of Europe with the quantity and variety of its furniture. In some other rural areas of France, they do not have the wealthy and demanding customer compare tp the capital area. Therefore, although the craftsmen in Paris are very cautious in choosing wood, if it is produced and sold for other places, the selection of materials is It prefers to use ordinary trees to make it easier for customers with more limited budgets. However, this does not mean that the provinces lack artisans who can make high-quality furniture. Take the Hutch family, whose ancestors worked in Toulouse around 1650, and his most prestigious son, Pierre Hutch, became famous in Grenoble and died in 1776.
The quality of French country-style furniture usually depends on the materials used, and, with a few exceptions, these pieces cannot achieve the technical and appearance perfection of Parisian furniture. Now we will try to determine the basic difference between furniture made in Paris and furniture made in the country.
In Paris during the Regency period, the frame of a piece of furniture (including drawers) was usually made entirely of oak, or it could be made of oak frame and walnut drawers, or most of the body of the furniture could be made of cork, and the drawers It is made of oak. Then stick precious wood on the surface of the furniture body and decorate it with copper brackets.
However, the frames (including drawers) of furniture in rural areas are made of cork or fruit wood. The drawers occasionally use walnut. Even so, furniture made in rural areas may be of high quality, especially if it is veneered with precious wood. In this case, the craftsmen will not veneer those invisible parts, which means that the furniture will have a Parisian appearance rather than an interior. Because of these differences, a piece of Parisian furniture is still much more expensive than rural furniture.
French Regency Country Style Furniture
French Regency Country Style Furniture
French Regency Parisian Style Furniture
French Regency Parisian Style Furniture
Finally, I want to talk about the relatively simple furniture that is provided to ordinary people. This type of furniture is mostly made of solid walnut or other low-value local woods. These works all adopt the Regency style appearance, while the main decorations such as scallop shells, mouse leaves and female heads are carved in wood; copper handles and all other decorative copper seats are in most cases It is simply cast and polished rather than gilded. When making simple seats, craftsmen created curved contours. The uniqueness of this silhouette is emphasized by more or less enlarging or reducing the size of the scallop shell carved in the middle of the chair.
However, country-style furniture is often easier to see the shadow of Louis XIV and even Louis XV style in shape. This is because the influence of Parisian fashion spread very slowly among the provinces, leading to the fusion of various styles.
In the next topic, I will introduce some knowledge of the bronzing technique.