The Louis XV style or Louis Quinze was a French Rococo style in the decorative arts, and, to a lesser degree, architecture. Datable to the personal reign of Louis XV (1723–1774), the style was characterised by supreme craftsmanship and the integration of the arts of cabinetmaking, painting, and sculpture. Furniture of the period—which typically came in two sets, a summer and a winter—was highly ornamental, yet elegant, and designed to mesh with the rest of the home decor. Orientalia—themes from the Far East—and the fabulous were the principle thematic expressions, and exotic woods and marbles were employed to further the effect.
Among the ébénistes who served under Louis XV were Jean-François Oeben, Roger Vandercruse Lacroix, Gilles Joubert, Antoine Gaudreau, and Martin Carlin. The most outstanding painters of the period were Juste-Aurèle Meissonier, François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Huet, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Pierre Migeon, and the van Loo family: Jean-Baptiste van Loo, Louis Michel van Loo, Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo, and Charles André van Loo. No mention of the artists of the period would be complete without mention of one of their chief patrons, the king's mistress: Madame de Pompadour.
References
- Louis XV style. (2008). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2 May 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9049092
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