Reign of Louis XVI (1774–1792)

Between 1774 and 1792, as a response to the decadent Rococo and Pompei’s discovery in 1748, the monarchy revived architectural orders. The monarchy was falling apart, but, through appearances, it tried to demonstrate otherwise. Furniture exhibited order, logic, and restraint. For example, on this bergère created for Marie Antoinette, the short legs are fluted columns topped with an ionic capital and above them rest Egyptian caryatid figures reflecting the queen’s taste for ancient Egyptian art.