Room decorations and furniture soon reached the highest point of elegance which French renaissance art of a sumptuous kind has touched since the sixteenth century. The panelling of rooms, usually in oak and painted white, was designed in severe lines with straight mouldings and pilasters. The pilasters were decorated with well-designed carved work, small, close, and splendidly gilt. The quills that fill the fluted columns still seen round so many interiors were cut into beads or other subdivisions with much care. Fine arabesque work in the style of the "loggie" of Raphael was partly carved in relief, partly drawn and painted, or gilt, with gold of a yellow or of a green hue; the green being largely alloyed with silver. An example of the best work of this kind may be referred to in the beautiful room brought from Paris and now preserved, reconstructed, at South Kensington. The houses built for members of the brilliant court of queen Marie Antoinette were filled with admirable work in this manner, or in the severer but still delicate carved panelling in wood plainly painted. The royal factories of the Gobelins and of Sèvres turned out also their most beautiful productions to decorate rooms, furniture, and table service. In the former of these, tapestries were made for wall hangings, for chair backs, seats, and sofas. Rich silks from the looms of Lyons, and from those of Lucca, Genoa, and Venice were also employed for this kind of furniture both in France and Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as in our own country. In all these matters France led the fashions. During this brilliant period, from 1774 to 1790, we meet with the names of several artists employed for painting the panelling of rooms, the lunettes over chimney fronts, and the panels of ceilings. Fragonard, Natoire, Boucher (the director of the Academy) are among the foremost of these. Their history perhaps belongs rather to that of painters than of our present subject; but they are too much mixed up with eighteenth century furniture not to find mention even in a sketch like the present. Other artists such as Delafosse, Lalonde, Cauvet and Salembier designed arabesques, decorative woodwork, and furniture. The designs of many of them are still extant: and Cauvet dedicated a book of them to Monsieur, the king's brother. Four tables with silver-gilt mounts of his design were made for the queen's house of the Trianon, and afterwards removed to the favourite residence of the emperor Napoleon at St. Cloud. Robert and Barthélemy were sculptors and bronze workers who made mounts for furniture, and engravers. Meissonnier, Oppenord, Queverdo worked in the same way. Hubert Robert, a painter, helped Micque in all the decorations of the Trianon.