Second Empire

n.
A heavily ornate style of furniture, architecture, and decoration that was developed in France in the middle of the 19th century.

[After Second Empire, the reign of Napoleon III, the next empire after that of Napoleon I.]

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Describes characteristic styles of Bonapartist France in 1852–70 during the reign of Emperor Napoleon III, or styles influenced by them. Essentially eclectic, the Second Empire was a period of revivals, especially Baroque, Empire, François I^er, Louis Seize, Neo-Grec, and Renaissance styles. The École des Beaux-Arts encouraged Historicism, as can be seen in the Paris created by Haussmann for Napoleon III, and especially in the extensions to the Louvre, from 1853. High roofs, lucarnes, and lush ornament gave French architecture of the period an opulent flavour that was widely appreciated and copied in the USA.

Bibliography

• Jane Turner (1996)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

This lasted from Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's assumption of imperial power in 1852 [see Napoleon III] until his defeat at Sedan in September 1870 [see Franco-Prussian War]. It was an authoritarian regime, though becoming more liberal in the 1860s. France was involved in several foreign wars (including the Crimean War) and in colonial expeditions [see Colonization]. It was a period of considerable industrial growth, seeing notably the rapid expansion of the railway network. One of the Second Empire's most lasting legacies was the haussmanisation of Paris.

In his Rougon-Macquart series, Zola offers a vast tableau of Second-Empire France, stressing economic and social change, corruption, speculation, and the positivistic, materialist spirit of the age.

[Peter France]

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