American Empire style

American Empire is a French-inspired Neoclassical style of furniture and decoration that takes its name from the Empire style of Napoleonic France. It is the second, more robust phase of American Neoclassicism - after the lighter Adam and Louis XVI idioms - and reached its greatest popularity in the United States after 1820. Cabinetmakers such as Duncan Phyfe in New York and the French-born Charles-Honore Lannuier gave the style its American character: heavy, monumental forms in dark mahogany, with classical details (columns, pilasters, scroll and sphinx feet, gilded brass mounts, eagle and lyre motifs) drawn from Greek, Roman and Egyptian sources - the Egyptian ones spurred by the Napoleonic campaigns. As a design movement it encompassed furniture, architecture and the decorative arts, and defined the look of the prosperous American interior for a generation.

Defining characteristics

• Dark mahogany and other rich woods, often with brass inlay and gilded mounts
• Classical details: columns, pilasters, scroll feet, carved eagles and lyres
• Heavy, monumental silhouettes with broad surfaces for ornament
• Greco-Roman and Egyptian motifs - sphinxes, palms, urns - after Napoleonic-era taste
• Straight, architectural forms with upholstery sunk into deep frames

Key figures

• Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854) — New York's leading cabinetmaker of the Federal and Empire years
• Charles-Honore Lannuier (1779-1819) — French-born New York cabinetmaker who brought Parisian Empire chic to America

Example works

• Secretaire-bookcase (libreria-secretaire) — Unknown (New York cabinetmaker) (c. 1830-40)
• Work table — Charles-Honore Lannuier (c. 1815)

Sources

• American Empire style - Wikipedia encyclopedia

← Back to the catalog