History of Furniture: Directoire

I am not presenting my recurring History of Furniture postings in any chronological order, so we are free to explore styles and silhouettes without any time frame. So let's put the needle down (a reference to vinyl records that some younger readers might not appreciate) right after the three Louis of France--especially Louis XVI (previously here)--and the subsequent French Revolution. After Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed, France was governed by what was called the Directoire Executif (this executive directory was a five-member committee which governed the country from 1795 until it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte on 9 November 1799). Therefore, this period--the last four years of the French Revolution--was known as Directoire. It was a time of great social and economic upheaval and uncertainty.

So what could this mean in terms of furniture and furnishings? Well, as is the case with most styles, "movements," and periods of history, there is rarely a clean break with what came before and what comes after. The past always has an influence and the Neoclassical structures, motifs, and lines from Louis XVI were still present in Directoire furniture but without the pomp and regality (after all, the French Revolution was all about ridding the country of monarchs and aristocrats). Pieces featured sparse carving and ornamentation, and were no longer made of exotic imported woods like rosewood and mahogany but local European woods like walnut, elm, or beech.

One of the "inventions" of the time was the bouillotte (BOO-yacht) lamp, a special fixture having two or three or even four candle arms and covered with a shade. Mostly made of tôle (painted metal) with a reflective interior, the shades could be lowered down on a shaft as the candles burned down, thus shielding a person from direct glare from the flame. The reflective interior served to amplify the light but also cast it downward onto a surface such a writing desk or a card table. In fact, the word bouillotte comes from the name of a French gambling card game that was an ancestor to modern poker!

But certainly the most iconic piece of furniture from the Directoire period is a day bed featuring ends of equal heights and a Neoclassical silhouette very much influenced by the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum several decades earlier. Once the painter Jacques-Louis David created his image Portrait of Madame Récamier, a painting showing socialite Juliette Récamier (do read about her fascinating life here) reclining barefoot and dressed in a Greco-Roman style gown on one such day bed, the furniture piece from then on was known as a récamier (reh-calm-ee-AY). It still goes by that name today. (Take a look at a past posting here where I covered fashion designer Rick Owens and his furniture pieces--he created a récamier in a modern vernacular.)

Happy designing!