Again, when Louis received the Siamese Ambassador, he was seated on a throne of silver, and his costume was so heavy with gold and jewels that he was soon forced to remove it.
It was an age of jewels. Travellers brought home from the East many precious stones, particularly diamonds; Tavernier, for instance, made six voyages to India and Persia, and brought diamonds to the King. Chardin, merchant to the King, publishes his voyage to Persia. This contact with the East touches popular fancy, and the Persian, the Turk and the Hindu appear in court-ballets, and their art often inspires the art of the day, as may be noted in some of the arabesques of Jean Bérain.
The general impression of the Louis XIV. style is that of imposing majesty,—a style that is more appropriate to ceremonial rooms than to familiar living. It is an age of carved and gilded furniture; the period indeed has been called “the triumph of gilded wood.” The carving, however, is entrusted to sculptors who seem to find inspiration in the work of the goldsmiths, for the complicated ornamentation that appears on the frames of chairs sofas, consoles, tables, etc., etc., suggests the chiselling of metal. Dead gold and burnished gold are both used, and the profusion of scrolls, leafy boughs, guilloches, heavy foliage, lozenge-shaped imbrications embossed with flowers in high relief, shells and flowers in high relief, arranged as festoons, garlands, bouquets, and sheaves, not to speak of the acanthus, the mascaron and the cartouche, produce an appearance of luxury and brilliancy that was unknown until the days of Louis XIV.
In the reign of Louis XIV., it was generally understood that every piece of decorative work should consist of a combination of the straight line and the curve. A series of bars interlaced, or ending with scrolls, is a distinguishing characteristic of this period. This combination is found not only in the forms of the furniture, but in the inlays of wood and brass and upon the walls of rooms, both painted and carved.
A feeling of stoutness and width characterizes the mouldings, the hollows of which never refuse to admit light, and these architectural mouldings are usually rich in classic ornaments (palm-leaves, ovolos, etc.). Sometimes the mouldings are replaced by a torus enriched with imbricated laurel-leaves.