“The panelling of rooms, usually in oak and painted white, was designed in severe lines with straight moulding 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 works in the style of the Loggie of Raphael, partly carved in relief, partly drawn and painted, or gilt, with gold of a yellow or a green hue, the green being largely alloyed with silver, and with silver leaf as well.... The houses built for members of the brilliant court of Marie Antoinette at Versailles and Paris, were filled with admirable work in this style, or in the severer but still delicate carved panelling in wood plainly painted. The royal factories of Gobelins and of Sèvres turned out their most beautiful productions to decorate the rooms, the furniture, and the table service of the young Queen and her courtiers. The former of these factories produced the tapestries for wall hangings.... Gobelins tapestry was used for chair backs and seats, and for 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. But in all these matters France led the fashions.” One of the specialties of this period is the great use of porcelain applied to the front of furniture; these placques are round or oval, and frequently a long rectangle. This fashion had already become popular during the former reign; but it was carried to excess in the days of Louis XVI. Jacquemart says: “We again repeat that no classification exists that is not defective; between the end of the reign of Louis XV. and the beginning of that of Louis XVI. there is certainly no marked transition; the sobered furniture in the style _à la reine_ is still seen with its chequered marquetry and delicately chased bronzes. Louis XV., the founder of the Porcelain manufactory of France, no doubt caused Sèvres plaques with bouquets, bordered with turquoise blue to be inlaid in the furniture he had around him, or which he offered as gifts. And yet it is more particularly in the reign of Louis XVI. and at the time when Amboyna wood and spotted mahogany were replacing marquetry mosaic, that porcelain and Wedgwood cameos were incrusted in panels, friezes, and the drawers of furniture; it may be permitted, therefore, for the sake of clearness, to call the overlaying of furniture with china by the name of the sovereign who so especially admired and patronized it. In fact, the period of Louis XVI. is that in which cabinet-making employed its resources most largely and multiplied its styles.” [Illustration: PLATE XLIII]