Rococo or Gustavian? How to Tell the Furniture Apart

The difference between Rococo and Gustavian furniture is the difference between the curved and the straight line. Rococo furniture, in Sweden from about 1740 to 1775, has curved cabriole legs, bulging fronts and asymmetrical shell ornament. Gustavian furniture, from about 1770 to 1810, has straight, tapering legs with fluting, straight fronts and symmetrical ornament modelled on antiquity: beading, laurel wreaths and oval medallions.

Facts

Two styles, one after the other

The two styles follow one another and overlap for only a few years. Rococo came from France, where it emerged during the Régence after Louis XIV, and reached Stockholm during the Age of Liberty, when the Riksdag governed and the court was weak. The city’s cabinetmakers and chairmakers followed French models, but often made the furniture simpler and more restrained than the Parisian pieces. Read more about the style in the guide to Rococo furniture.

Around 1770 taste turned. The excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum had made antiquity fashionable, and in Paris the curves of the Rococo were replaced by the straight Louis XVI style. In Sweden Neoclassicism was named after Gustav III, who became king in 1771, and is called Gustavian. The style lived on long after his death in 1792, and in the countryside Gustavian chairs were made well into the 19th century. The guide to the Gustavian style covers it on its own.

Look at the legs first

The legs are the quickest way to tell the styles apart. Rococo legs are cabriole legs: they curve outwards at the knee and inwards towards the foot, like an S, and often end in a small goat’s-foot or a shell. In England they ended in a claw clutching a ball, as on the Chippendale chair. A Gustavian leg is straight, tapers downwards and often has flutes, grooves running lengthways, so that it resembles a small column. Where the leg meets the apron there is a square block with a rosette.

The apron, the frame under the seat or top, follows the legs. On a Rococo chair or chest of drawers it is curved and shaped, often with a carved shell in the middle. On a Gustavian piece it is straight and narrow, sometimes with a simple moulding. If a chair has curved legs and a completely straight apron with corner blocks, it is probably a blend, and then it is time to look more closely at the rest.

The back, the chest of drawers and the mounts

The back of the chair is the next clue. The Rococo chair has a curved crest rail and a vase-shaped or pierced splat. The Gustavian chair has an oval or round medallion, a straight back with a lyre or vertical bars, and the crest rail is straight or has a simple arch with a small carved rosette or laurel wreath. Armchairs follow the same pattern, such as Georges Jacob’s armchairs for the French court.

On chests of drawers the difference is clearest. A Rococo chest of drawers is bombé: the front bulges both in width and in height, the veneer is laid in patterns and the handles are irregular rocailles in gilt brass. A Gustavian chest is straight and rectangular, with marquetry in squares or flower baskets, straight tapering legs and round ring handles. Compare the chest by Charles Cressent from Paris with the chest by Georg Haupt, Gustav III’s court cabinetmaker, and you can see the whole change over thirty years. The chest-of-drawers diagram further down shows the same piece in both styles.

Ornament, colour and materials

The ornament of the Rococo is the rocaille, an asymmetrical shell-and-rock motif, together with flowers, leaves and tendrils that never repeat exactly on both sides. The Gustavian style took its ornament from the temples of antiquity: beading, laurel wreaths, garlands, urns and rosettes, always placed symmetrically. The terms are explained in the glossary and in the guide to furniture terms.

Colour helps too. Gustavian chairs and sofas were most often painted with linseed-oil paint in pale grey or pearl grey, sometimes with gilt details in the finest rooms. Rococo chests of drawers were veneered in walnut, rosewood and other figured woods, and the joinery could be painted in stronger colours or gilded. A pale grey chair with fluted legs is almost always Gustavian, but the colour has often been repainted several times, so it is no proof of age.

The rooms where the styles show

The furniture never stood alone. Rococo was a style of interior decoration in which wall panels, mirrors, tiled stoves and furniture shared the same curving lines, and in Sweden the Chinese Pavilion (Kina slott) at Drottningholm, from the 1760s, is one of the best-preserved examples, with the Rococo’s play on Chinese motifs. In France the style belonged to the Régence and Rococo, and in painting to Boucher and Fragonard; see the guide to Rococo in art.

Gustavian rooms are light and austere, with pearl-grey wall panels, straight mouldings and furniture placed along the walls. You can follow the style’s Swedish history in the Gustavian period. Anyone who wants to see both styles on the same timeline can go to furniture styles in chronological order or to the page on furniture, where the detailed drawings accompany each period.

Transitional style, the provinces and later copies

In the 1770s many pieces were made in a blend known as the transitional style. The chest of drawers might have the Rococo’s curved legs but a straighter front and antique ornament, and the chair a curved apron with an oval back. Such pieces are not mistakes but show the very moment when taste turned.

Provincial cabinetmakers followed fashion with a delay, and both styles were made anew during the historicism of the 19th century and in the 20th century. A piece in the Rococo or Gustavian style can therefore be much younger than the style. The style tells you what the piece wants to resemble; the construction reveals when it was made. Read more in the guides on dating an antique chest of drawers and dating an antique chair, and continue to the next change of style in the guide to Gustavian and Karl Johan.

How to recognise it

Exercise

A chair has straight, fluted legs that taper downwards, a block with a rosette at the apron and an oval back. Which style is it?