Antique Directoire Style Bergère

Antique Louis XVI style gilt wood (gold leaf) bergere, circa 1900. With a down filled seat.

Antique Directoire style walnut games table, 19th century. With a rectangular top with banding and parquetry inlay, when the top is opened there is a brown felt playing surface below...

Antique Directoire style verre églomisé glass barometer, 19th century. Barometer is not functional it is purely decorative.

Pair of Antique Directoire style painted armchairs, circa 1900. With triangular shaped crest rails flanked by acorn finials, down swept arms, elongated vase shaped arm supports, turn...

Antique Directoire style fruit wood coffee table, 19th century. With an overhanging 3 board top, 3 frieze drawers with wood knobs, resting on square tapered legs. Mortise, tenon and ...

Directoire Style fruitwood leather top writing table / desk made from 19th century and later elements. With a rectangular leather top with fruitwood borders, central frieze drawer fl...

Elegant faux suede Directoire style bergere with fluted and tapered legs and curved columnar arm details. Natural colored wood showing great a...

Painted French Directoire style bergere chair C 1900. This chair has just been reupholstered in a burlap type fabric.

French Directoire period blue-gray painted bergere, newly-upholstered in lovely blue and gold toile fabric based on a museum-archived pattern....

A fabulous early 20th century bergère, with taupe painted frame, made in the Directoire style in France, circa 1900. This beautiful, large chair has a linear back that is juxtaposed ...

A pair of painted French Directoire style bergere chairs C 1900.

A Directoire Mahogany Bergère Attributed to Georges Jacob, its curved back and padded armrests with finely carved baluster-shaped supports raised on turned front legs and sabre back legs. With a spurious Jacob stamp to back rail. The term "Directoire" refers to a historical period following the French Revolution (1789) and preceding the First Empire when Napoleon reigned, but also to a style of furniture and decoration covering a longer period from 1789 to 1804. It is characterized by the production of furniture with simplified forms and ornaments, inspired by antique decorations. The profound social and political upheavals that marked this period had a direct impact on the production of Directoire furniture. The stripping down of furniture pieces, which had begun in the 1780s under the influence of Greek art, was accentuated during this period. The abolition of guilds by the revolutionaries also forced manufacturers in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to simplify shapes and materials. Elegant and graceful, the furniture is generally small-scale. They retain the Louis XVI structure. The Directoire style adopts clean shapes, straight lines, simple curves, flat surfaces and right angles. Lines accentuate geometric shapes inspired by Antiquity. A typical trait is the pronounced rolled-over back, similar to a scroll illustrated in our bergere, evocative of the klismos chair. Only the more luxurious pieces of furniture use mahogany, an exotic and expensive wood. Despite his humble origins, Georges Jacob rose to become one of the most renowned menuisiers of his day. Unlike many artisans who joined their fathers or brothers in the middle-class family trade of furniture making, Jacob was from a peasant family and moved to Paris at sixteen to begin his career. He apprenticed in a joinery workshop and eventually became a master in 1765. He developed a reputation for producing inventive designs for chairs, beds, and screens carved with such motifs as twisted ribbons, guilloches, beading, and fluting. Jacob's reputation grew quickly, eventually spreading outside France; the future King George IV of England, Gustavus III of Sweden, and several German princes...