Baroque and the court manufactories

Kings wanted to display power, and objects became part of the spectacle: gilded furniture, tapestries and silver made in state workshops.

The Baroque began in Rome but in design it became above all a French style. In 1667 Louis XIV and his minister Colbert made the Gobelins in Paris the court manufactory for furniture and tapestries, under the painter Charles Le Brun. Everything at Versailles – from tapestries and furniture to silver and locks – was to follow the same formal language and show the king's greatness.

Furniture was heavy, symmetrical and richly carved, often gilded. The cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle made cabinets and commodes covered in marquetry of tortoiseshell, brass and pewter, known as Boulle work. Ornament designers such as Jean Bérain spread the court's patterns through engravings bought by craftsmen throughout Europe.

At the same time large quantities of porcelain arrived from China and Japan with the East India companies. Europeans tried for a long time to imitate it. In Delft blue-painted tin-glazed earthenware was made, and in Meissen hard-paste porcelain was achieved in 1708–1710 – a European sensation.

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