rvellous--it has never been
equalled and could not be excelled. Time has now mellowed the colour of
the woodwork it adorns; and the tint of the gold with which it is
overlaid, improved by the lights and shadows caused by the high relief of
the work and the consequent darkening of the parts more depressed while
the more prominent ornaments have been rubbed bright from time to time,
produces an effect which is exceedingly elegant and rich. One cannot
wonder that connoisseurs are prepared to pay such large sums for genuine
specimens, or that clever imitations are exceedingly costly to produce.

Illustrations are given from some of the more notable examples of
decorative furniture of this period, which were sold in 1882 at the
celebrated Hamilton Palace sale, together with the sums they realised:
also of specimens in the South Kensington Museum in the Jones Collection.

We must also remember, in considering the _meubles de luxe_ of this time,
that in 1753 Louis XV. had made the Sevres Porcelain Manufactory a State
enterprise; and later, as that celebrated undertaking progressed, tables
and cabinets were ornamented with plaques of the beautiful and choice
_pate tendre_, the delicacy of which was admirably adapted to enrich the
light and frivolous furnishing of the dainty boudoir of a Madame du Barri
or a Madame Pompadour.

Another famous artist in the delicate bronze mountings of the day was
Pierre Gouthiere. He commenced work some years later than Caffieri, being
born in 1740; and, like his senior fellow craftsman, did not confine his
attention to furniture, but exercised his fertility of design, and his
passion for detail, in mounting bowls and vases of jasper, of Sevres and
of Oriental porcelain. The character of his work is less forcible than
that of Caffieri, and comes nearer to what we shall presently recognise as
the Louis Seize, or Marie Antoinette style, to which period his work more
properly belongs: in careful finish of minute details, it more resembles
the fine goldsmith's work of the Renaissance.

[Illustration: Bureau Du Roi. Made for Louis XV. by Riesener. (Collection
of "Mobilier National.") (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._)
Period: Louis XV.]

Gouthiere was employed extensively by Madame du Barri; and at her
execution, in 1793, he lost the enormous balance of 756,000 francs which
was due to him, but which debt the State repudiated, and the unfortunate
man died in extreme poverty, the inmate of