Beaux Arts furniture included chairs replicating models from the Renaissance and sofas inspired by Louis XIV. These pieces filled high-ceilinged rooms that featured tapestries fit for a medieval castle and were illuminated by crystal chandeliers reminiscent of those in European palaces. Leon Marcotte Company created furnishings for the White House mimicking the style of Louis XVI, while in France, cabinetmaker Louis Majorelle reproduced 18th-century pieces that would influence his later Art Nouveau style.

Students at the École des Beaux-Arts in 19th-century Paris meticulously sketched Roman and Greek art and architecture as part of a curriculum that elevated the classical world. This reverence for history informed the architecture and design being constructed in the French capital and beyond, where columns and pediments were joined with elements referencing the Renaissance and Baroque eras, culminating in grand civic buildings such as the Palais Garnier opera house constructed under Napoleon III.

Beaux Arts style, also known as Classical Eclecticism for its flamboyant mixing of influences, made its way to the United States in the late 19th century through American architects who studied in Paris, like Richard Morris Hunt and Charles Follen McKim. They designed monumental turn-of-the-century buildings like train stations, libraries, museums and mansions that featured soaring entry halls and grand stairways with nearly every surface embellished, from mosaic floors to stained-glass ceilings. The luxurious interiors of these Beaux Arts buildings, which weren’t crowded with objects as in the Victorian era, matched this spirit of opulence and embraced the past.

Find a collection of Beaux Arts decorative objects, lighting, wall decorations and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Finding the Right prints for You

Prints are works of art produced in multiple editions. Though several copies of a specific artwork can exist, collectors consider antique and vintage prints originals when they have been manually created by the artist or are “impressions” that are part of the artist’s intent for the work.

Modern artists use a range of printmaking techniques to produce different types of prints such as relief, intaglio and planographic. Relief prints are created by cutting away a printing surface to leave only a design. Ink or paint is applied to the raised parts of the surface, and it is used to stamp or press the design onto paper or another surface. Relief prints include woodcuts, linocuts and engravings.

Intaglio prints are the opposite of relief prints in that they are incised into the printing surface. The artist cuts the design into a block, plate or other material and then coats it with ink before wiping off the surface and transferring the design to paper through tremendous pressure. Intaglio prints have plate marks showing the impression of the original block or plate as it was pressed onto the paper.

Artists create planographic prints by drawing a design on a stone or metal plate using a grease crayon. The plate is washed with water, then ink is spread over the plate and it adheres to the grease markings. The image is then stamped on paper to make prints.

All of these printmaking methods have an intricate process, although each can usually transfer only one color of ink. Artists use separate plates or blocks for multiple colors, and together these create one finished work of art.

Find prints ranging from the 18th- and 19th-century bird illustrations by J.C. Sepp to mid-century modern prints, as well as numerous other antique and vintage prints at 1stDibs. Browse the collection today and read about how to arrange wall art in your space.