The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Furniture Finishing

The walnut, where stained at all, is given a weak solution of walnut crystals, filled with natural or very light walnut filler and two or three coats of lacquer, dull rubbed. A thin finish film is to be desired and ornaments if desired may be high-lighted with pale gold bronze. Mahogany is given the standard Adam brown finish, dull rubbed and only very delicately shaded if at all. Both finishes call for extra attention to fine veneer figures, ordinarily of the diamond pencil-stripe variety.

Louis XV (The Rococo period, 1723-1774)


IN 1715 the death of Louis XIV left The succession to a child of five, who eight years later assumed the title of Louis XV. Affairs of state in the interim were directed by his dissolute uncle, the Duke of Orleans, from which we have what is known as the Regency period (1715-1723), notorious for its unbridled extravagance and wanton living. With respect to furniture it marked a completion of the transition already begun from massive pompousness to luxurious curves.

Unlike his great-grandfather, Louis at no time showed any military bent, but devoted himself unremittingly to the pursuit of pleasure. Dominated by Madame de Pompadour, Madame Du Barry and a host of sycophantic courtiers, he passed from one new "diversion to another, shrugging his shoulders at hints of a nation impoverished to the breaking point and remarking: "After me, the deluge." At least he is so credited, the while England took from him first India, then Canada, because he could find no time or money to support his colonial governors.

While he had no direct influence upon it, furniture during his reign lost the last vestiges of Renaissance character and became not" only nfore profuse but attained the acme of comfort. The palace "of the day was reconstructed to provide a variety of livable rooms in place of the dreary succession of vast ballrooms and the consequent impetus to ingenuity in furniture design brought out a host of small pieces such as writing desks, love seats, boudoir tables, card tables, writing tables and the like. Chairs no longer required two strong servants to move them and the luxurious bergere, deep sofa and chaise longue first came into being.