During the eighteenth century Dutch and Belgian furniture, in common with English and German, humbly submitted to the dictates of the great French designers. The _Singerie_, _Chinoiserie_ and _Rocaille_ work of Watteau, Boucher, Meissonnier, Oppenord, Cressent, Huet, Gillot and others were welcomed and adapted to local tastes in the Low Countries. Many of the most beautiful cabinets and china-closets of the _Régence_ and _Louis Quinze_ period that are preserved in Continental museums owe their origin to the skilled workmen of Belgium, especially of the School of Lille. Many fine specimens of the decorative work of this period may be seen in the Lille Museum. A typical example from Liège appears in Fig. 46. This shows the use as an ornamental feature of the broken curve, the auricle, a more sober descendant of the _style auriculaire_. The use of this ornament encountered rabid opposition in Regency days in France, England and the Low Countries, but it forced its way into favour shoulder to shoulder with the _Chinoiserie_, _Singerie_ and _Rocaille_ ornamentation. This double-bodied cabinet is made for the preservation and display of delft and porcelain. Ledges at the top are also provided for urns and jars as decorative accessories. It may be interesting to see what a typical china-cabinet contained at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1700, we note one of carved walnut with four doors. In the lower compartment there were twenty vases of red India ware, a porcelain vinaigrette, a cup of enamelled glass, a little horn cup and a multitude of miscellaneous curios. Another cabinet having two lower doors, a middle drawer and one glass door above, contained fine delft vases, two cups and saucers, a big faïence jug and two little ones, six big rare sea-shells and other Oriental curios. [Illustration: Fig. 46.—_Cabinet from Liège._ Fig. 47.—_Dutch Mirror Frame._ ] Dutch art was now in its decadence; it had lost its pre-eminence. The French artists set the fashion. The painter who is commonly held responsible for the decadence is Gérard de Lairesse (Liège, 1641–1711). He shows all the technique of the old school, and arranges his compositions in accordance with the laws of Italian taste, but he is decidedly artificial. His contemporaries and successors are feeble imitators of the Great and Little masters, and those who have the greatest reputations are miniaturists and still-life painters. For Dutch interiors we now have to go to the pastels of Cornelis Troost (Amsterdam, 1697–1750), whose compositions gained for him the name of the “Dutch Hogarth.” Two reproductions of interiors by this artist are shown in Plates LIV and LV. The chairs, tables, sideboards, candlestands, chandeliers, buffets and chimney-pieces in these pictures in nowise differ from those used in England during the early Georgian era.