, and two Italian carved chairs.

[Illustration: _Entrance Hall in New York Duplex Apartment. Italian
Furniture_]

The backgrounds for these mounts were the woods finely inlaid with
ivory shell and brass in the style of the Italian Renaissance.
Oriental lacquer and painted furniture, at that time heavily gilded.

The legs of chairs, sofas and tables of the Louis XIV period were
cabrioles (curved outward)--a development of the animal legs of carved
wood, bronze or gold, used by the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians and
Greeks as supports for tables and chairs. Square grooved legs also
appeared in this type.

The same grooves are found on round tapering legs of Louis XVI's time.
In fact that type of leg is far more typical of the Louis XVI period
than the cabriole or square legs grooved, but one sees all three
styles.

Other hallmarks of the Louis XVI period are the straight outlines,
perfectly balanced proportions, the rosettes, ribbon and bow-knot with
torch and arrows in chiselled bronze.

That all "painting and sculpture sang of love" is as true of Louis XVI
as of Louis XV. In both reigns the colouring was that of
spring-tender greens, pale blossoms, the grey of mists, sky-blues,
and yellows of sunshine.

During Louis XV's time soft cushions fitted into the sinuous lines of
the furniture, and as some Frenchman has put it, "a vague, discreet
perfume pervaded the whole period, in contrast to the heavier odour of
the First Empire."

The walls and ceilings of the three Louis were richly decorated in
accordance with a scheme, surpassing in magnificence any other period.

An intricate system of mouldings (to master which, students at the
Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, must devote years) encrusted sidewalls
and ceilings, forming panels and medallions, over-doors and
chimney-pieces, into which were let paintings by the great masters of
the time, whose subjects reflected the moods and interests of each
period. The Louis XV and XVI paintings are tender and vague as to
subject and the colours veiled in a greyish tone, full of sentiment.

That was the great period of tapestry weaving--Beauvais, Arras and
Gobelin, and these filled panels or hung before doors.

It may be said that the period of Louis XVI profited by antiquity,
but continued French traditions; it was a renaissance of line and
decoration kept alive, while the First Empire was classic form
inanimate, because an abrupt innovation rather than an influence and a