Tour: Neoclassical Decorative Arts of the Late 1700s

Overview | Start Tour
1	2	3
4	5	6

back to decorative arts

Overview

During the reign of Louis XVI (1774-1792), many French intellectuals called for a moral austerity and social dignity that they associated with ancient Greece and republican Rome. Neoclassicism, adapting ideals from classical civilizations, replaced the pastel frivolity of the earlier rococo mode with a clear-cut sobriety. Eighteenth-century excavations at the ruined cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, provided archeological artifacts to inspire this new, classicizing style. (continue)

Captions

Room	1
1	Jean-François Leleu, Combined Toilet and Writing Table (toilette à transformations), c. 1764/1775
2	Jean-Henri Riesener, Roll-top Desk (Bureau à cylindre), c. 1775/1785
3	Jean-Henri Riesener, Writing Table (table à écrire), 1784
4	Jean-Henri Riesener, Writing Table (table à écrire), c. 1780
5	Martin Carlin, Work and Writing Table (table en chiffonnière), c. 1770
6	In part by David Roentgen and/or his workshop; in part by an unknown craftsmen, probably French or German 19th Century, Writing Table with Mechanical Fittings (table mécanique or schreibtisch), partly c. 1779, partly 19th century