Renaissance Interior Design

History of Art and Interior Design

Walls

• Paneling reaches from floor to ceiling
• Intarsia in decorations
• Cartouche

Windows and Doors

• Square-headed windows were usual
• Doors set in deep reveals

Fireplace

• Strong focal points of a room
• Highly ornamented with sculptural reliefs
• Mantel was the most decorative feature in the room

Ceilings

• Flat ceilings with exposed beams and girders

Stairways

• Spiral, straight, and dogleg flights

Furniture Elements

• Chairs had thronelike backs, straight arms
• Chairs had turned, spiral, or baluster legs with bun or Flemish scroll feet
• Motifs: olive, laurel, or acanthus leaves, foliated scrolls, rosettes, cartouche, medallions, shells, chimera, griffins, caryatids, grotesques, gadrooning
• Furniture joints were concealed

Furniture Types

• Stool/Tabouret
• Escabelle

Other

• Caquetoire: From caqueter ("to chat"), woman's chair had trapezoidal form standing on four legs
• Armoire: Italian form of double cabinet for linen or clothes
• Commode: Chest of drawers

Commode en Tambeau

• Tambour-shaped commode

Lit d'ange ("Angel's Bed")

• A bed with a tester but no posts
• The tester floats like an "angel" over the bed

Cabinet on Stands

French Regency

• The term regency loosely described the transition period from the height style of Louis XIV to the feminine style of Louis XV
• When Louis XIV died, Philippe d'Orleans acted as regent for Louis XV
• The craze for chinoiserie was responsible for much of the character of the Regency and Louis XV styles

Furniture Elements

• For chairs, the heavy rectangular back of the Baroque combined with cabriole legs

French Rococo

• Reign of Louis XV
• Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's mistress and France's most outstanding patron of the arts

Interiors

• Planned with intimate special-purpose rooms
• Pastel-painted panels with curved moldings replaced the marble and stucco walls of the previous era
• Pastoral or mythological scenes, decorative chinoiseries, and/or Rococo ornamentation in low relief, often gilded, were placed asymmetrically within the panel
• Wallpapers were popularized by the middle class, and flocked papers imported from England
• Parquet floor was covered with patterned carpets in soft colors
• Fireplaces were often ornamented with Irumean or overmantle, combined paneling, mirror, and painted ornamentation

Guild System for Craftsmen

• Ebeniste: Maker of veneered furniture
• Menuisier: Maker of solid wood furniture
• Fondeur: Maker of metal mounts
• Ciseleur: Maker of bronze chasing
• Vernisseur: Lacquerer
• Marqueteur: Maker of marquetry panel
• Doreur: Gilder

Furniture Types

• Fauteuil: Armchair with pierced arm
• Bergere: Lounge chair with full arm
• Coupé: Small, two-seat sofa with an exposed frame
• Marquise: Completely upholstered small sofa similar to a wide seat or a wide bergere; a seat for two people
• Voyeuse: A straddle chair, in which the sitter faced the chair back and rested his arms on the upholstered top rail
• Cabriolet: A small chair with a concave back and cabriole legs

Furniture

• Lit de repos: A daybed, was the chaise lounge, an upholstered chair with a long seat for reclining
• Duchesse-brisée: Two upholstered chairs put together and connected in the middle with an ottoman between them
• Confidente: Three seats to a single unit, with the two end seats smaller and separated by arms from the center section
• Console table: A table fixed to a wall with its top supported by consoles or front legs
• Table de chevet: Bedside table
• Table coiffeuse: The dressing table with drawers that opened to reveal a mirror

Design Pieces

• Rolltop desk (bureau a cylinder)
• Bureau Du Roi (King's Desk): Took nine years to finish
• Commode: A low chest of drawers, the most typical
• Eincsignure: A corner cupboard mainly built into the room
• Armoire: Continued to be used for clothing storage
• Secretaries: Writing cabinets with drawers hidden by the writing surface

Bonheur-du-jour

• A small light lady's writing desk with a central drawer in front, tiered shelves and cupboards in the back, and sometimes shelves between the legs

Accessory

• Glass mirrors
• Sèvres: Porcelain vases, portrait busts, Celadon vases from China, and Vincennes-Soft paste figurines and serving pieces
• Mantle clocks in exotic animal shapes

French Neoclassic

• Under the reign of Louis XVI, there was a revived interest in classicism with the excavation of the ruins of Herculaneum in 1738
• George Jacob founded a dynasty of cabinetmakers during this time
• Henri Riesener, a Parisian cabinetmaker and student of Oeben, designed many pieces for Marie Antoinette

Interiors

• Interior architecture and furnishings are the most important aspects of the Neoclassical style
• Proportions were light and refined, retaining intimacy and charm, but with an emphasis on straight lines and geometric forms
• Ovals, ellipses, and circles, which were usually segmental, were the only curves used
• Wide and narrow panels of painted wood or plaster covered with rich fabrics or wallpaper or filled with mirrors or paintings, were symmetrically arranged
• Slim panels on the walls, called boiseries, (carved woodwork picked out in gilt) were popular
• Doors and windows had rectangular or elliptical panels over them and were symmetrically arranged, with flatter more austere moldings, such as the egg and dart
• The trumeau (overdoor or overpaneling filled with paintings or mirrors) were frequently seen
• Color prints and paintings were popular
• Ceilings were usually flat and decorated with simple classical motifs, with a large glass chandelier in the center
• Rooms with high ceilings had an entablature crowning the paneling, rooms with low ceilings had a simple comice or a cove

Furniture Elements

• Manchettes (padded armrests): The arms ended in a volute or hoop back (the latter had up-rights and top rail in one continuous arch)
• Legs were rectilinear, game (a pedestal leg which tapers towards the bottom), fluted, turned, and quiver-shaped, or spindle-shaped and fluted
• Numerous innovations appeared, such as dining tables, combination secretary and chest-of-drawers, cylinder desks, mechanical furniture, and furniture with metal tops
• Motifs were derived from Greek sources and from nature: classical orders, fruit, flowers, laurel wreaths, garlands, ribbons and bow-knots, mythological scenes, shepherds and shepherdesses, caryatids, trophies, hunting and music symbols, arabesques, running motifs such as guilloche, beads, leaf bands

Furniture Types

• Fauteuil: with a square or medallion back that did not extend to the seat rail; Often slightly concave
• Dressoir or sideboard: storage piece for display holding food or plate; literally "dressing the food"
• Credence

French Baroque

• The first of the purely native styles
• During the reign of Louis XIV, France's Golden Age
• Andre Charles Boulle appointed master cabinetmaker to Louis XIV

Interiors

• Rooms in enfilade arrangement from public to more private spaces
• Salone - (a living room or parlor), means a conversational gathering
• Suites at each end
• Apartment
  • Antechamber
  • Chamber
  • Cabinet
• State bedchamber bed set off by curtains and columns
• Variety of interior spaces
• Vertical perspectives resulting from the light and dark contrasts in the staircase
• The rooms had massive proportion, and walls, ceilings, ornamentation were coordinated with the furnishings
• Furniture was still placed next to the wall because most activities took place while people were standing
• Colors were rich and vivid, and some of the combinations were violet and red, silver and gold, or red and green
• Large plate glass mirrors were used, and imported Chinese wallcover covered the walls
• Fireplace - ornamented with cartouche, swags, scrolls, and various classical ornaments
• Ceilings
  • contours varied: flat, barrel-vaulted, dome-vaulted, and with a cove from wall to ceiling
  • Painting, fresco, and stucco
  • Encouragement of vistas and the distinctive variation of ceiling configuration
• Doors and window trim was architecturally treated with a heavy molding, crowned with a comice
• Floors were wood parquet or black and white marble
• Crystal or carved wood chandelier in the center room with additional wall torcheres
• Accessories include: busts, hanging

This quiz covers the characteristics of Renaissance interior design, including walls, windows, doors, fireplaces, ceilings, and stairways. Learn about the ornate features and decorative elements of this historic design period.