Empire or Biedermeier? The difference in furniture

Empire is Napoleon’s imperial style from around 1800, with dark mahogany, gilt-bronze mounts, lion’s paws and classical symbols. Biedermeier is the cosier variant of the middle classes in Germany and Austria after 1815, with the same straight forms but light woods such as cherry, pear and birch, smooth surfaces and almost no mounts. In Sweden both correspond to the Karl Johan style.

Facts

The same origin, a different public

Both styles grow out of Neoclassicism and share its straight lines, symmetry and classical models. The difference lies in whom they were made for. Empire was shaped by Napoleon’s architects Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine as an imperial language of power for palaces and government offices, and it spread across Europe with the wars.

Biedermeier emerged after Napoleon’s fall and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when the middle classes in Germany and Austria withdrew into the home. The name comes from a satirical figure, the narrow-minded bourgeois Herr Biedermeier, who appeared in a German humorous magazine only in the 1850s. The style was made for sitting rooms, not throne rooms, and the art section’s Austrian Biedermeier shows the same period in painting.

Empire: mahogany, bronze and symbols

Empire furniture is heavy and symmetrical, with large smooth surfaces of dark, polished mahogany. The decoration lies in gilt-bronze mounts fixed to the surface: swans, lions’ heads, victory wreaths, bees and classical goddesses. The legs are often lion’s paws, columns or sabre legs, and the forms are taken directly from classical models, as in Madame Récamier’s daybed of around 1798.

The style took on names of its own in different countries: Regency in England, Federal in the United States and Karl Johan in Sweden. The French development is described under French Empire in French design history.

Biedermeier: the grain is the decoration

Biedermeier takes the forms of Empire but strips away the pomp. Mahogany is often replaced by light, native woods such as cherry, pear, birch and walnut, and instead of bronze it is the wood’s own grain that is the decoration. On the Viennese secretaire the veneer is book-matched, so that the grain is mirrored in the middle, and black-stained columns or mouldings provide contrast.

The Biedermeier chair shows the comfort of the style: light wood, a broad, curved crest rail, sometimes with a lyre or a fan-shaped opening, and sabre legs that sweep out in an even curve. Around 1900 designers in Vienna saw the smooth surfaces as a modern form before Modernism. The style is described more closely in the guide to Biedermeier and under German Biedermeier.

Karl Johan: Sweden’s middle way

In Sweden Empire came with Karl XIV Johan, who became king in 1818, and the style took his name. The Karl Johan chest of drawers is heavy and symmetrical, with columns on the corners and mounts in gilt brass. But because mahogany was expensive, Swedish joiners often veneered birch or pine, or stained the birch dark.

That is why the two styles blur together in Sweden. Dark, polished furniture with mounts is called Karl Johan or Swedish Empire, whereas light birch furniture in the same forms, with Karelian birch and almost no mounts, is often called Biedermeier. The guide to the Karl Johan style and the one on Gustavian and Karl Johan go deeper, and the period appears under Karl Johan in Swedish design history.

How to tell them apart

Begin with the wood. Dark, reddish-brown mahogany with a glossy French polish points to Empire, light cherry, pear or birch to Biedermeier. Then look at the mounts: many gilt-bronze mounts with figures mean Empire, few or none apart from escutcheons mean Biedermeier. Black details, such as ebonised columns or mouldings against light wood, are typical of Biedermeier.

Finally look at the form. Empire is monumental and architectural, with pilasters, columns and lion’s paws, and Biedermeier is softer, with curved sides, rounded backs and sometimes playful forms. The chest-of-drawers diagram further down shows the Empire chest; compare it with the Biedermeier secretaire and you will see the difference.

What to look for: the veneer and later copies

Both styles are veneered, and the veneer says a great deal about the age. Hand-sawn veneer from the early 19th century is several millimetres thick, whereas later machine-cut veneer is thin, and this can be seen where the edges have worn. Flame mahogany veneer and mirrored surfaces belong to both styles; how to read them is explained in the guide to veneer and solid wood.

Be aware of later copies too. Both Empire and Biedermeier were remade in the second half of the 19th century and again around 1900, and then the veneer is thinner, the mounts cast in series and the drawer joints machine-cut. How the styles follow one another is shown in furniture styles in chronological order.

How to recognise it

Exercise

A secretaire has light cherry veneer that is mirrored in the middle, black columns and almost no mounts. Which style is it probably?