The French rococo revival along the Mississippi River

Magazine Antiques, August, 2004 by Jason T. Busch

In his influential Architecture of Country Houses (1850), Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852) noted:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There is, at the present moment, almost a mania in the cities for
expensive French furniture and decorations.... Modern French furniture,
and especially that in the style of Louis Quatorze, stands much higher
in general estimation in this country than in any other. (1)

Variously called Louis Quatorze, modern French, and antique French, the style is known today as rococo revival. It represents an adaptation of the fluid naturalistic designs that decorated objects during the reigns of Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) and especially Louis XV (r. 1715-1774) of France. (2)

The style and Francophilia that ensued were very much in vogue in New York City by the 1840s, (5) and they were all the rage along the Mississippi River by the 1850s. The influence of the French, who had permanently settled the Mississippi River valley in the early eighteenth century, persisted in family names and architectural designs from Minnesota to Louisiana during the midnineteenth century. In particular, the large French-speaking community along the lower stretches of the river included French portraitists such as Jacques Amans (1801-1888) and Francois Bernard, who profited from an audience of affluent judges, lawyers, and planters (see Pl. XVII). The immense wealth accumulated through sugar and cotton cultivation on the Lower Mississippi and lumber and flour milling along the Upper Mississippi financed the market for fashionable rococo revival furnishings.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The river was the conduit for spreading the latest patterns and tastes from France and the East Coast. The hundreds of steamboats that plied the Mississippi were imposing pleasure palaces. The pioneer missionary and traveler Timothy Flint (1780-1840) wrote in 1832:

a stranger of this mode of traveling would find it difficult to describe
his impressions upon descending the Mississippi for the first time in
one of these steamboats ... the splendor of the cabin, its beautiful
finishing of the richest woods, its rich carpeting, its mirrors and fine
furniture ... everything in a style of splendor, order, quiet and
regularity. (4)

The description is corroborated in the gouache painting by the architect and civil engineer Marie Adrien Persac that commemorates a voyage he and his wife took aboard the steamer Imperial (Pl. II). (5) The rich appointments of the steamer included Gothic revival architectural tracery and stained-glass windows in the medieval style, and rococo revival gilt-brass chandeliers, tablecloths, carpets, drapery, and spittoons. A wealth of ideas and options were presented in these floating design emporiums. Retailers of furnishings along the Mississippi, such as E. Jaccard and Company in Saint Louis, benefited from the steady flow of passengers on the steamboats. About 1854 the firm provided an impressive presentation pitcher for Le Grand Morehouse (b. 1814), a steamboat captain from Galena, Illinois (Pl. IV). (6) The pitcher is sparingly decorated with chased and repousse meandering vines with clusters of grapes and leaves in the rococo revival style. The sinuous design of the handle adheres to the rococo revival while at the same time suggesting the art nouveau style to come. By 1863, the Jaccard firm had as partners several steamboat captains, probably to furnish ships and to sell silver to passengers as far north as Wisconsin. (7)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The painter and gilder Rudolph T. Lux had a thriving business decorating porcelain for the steamboat trade and private commissions from New Orleans to Saint Louis. He often advertised by placing his name, occupation, and address on objects he decorated. As early as 1857, Lux announced in the New Orleans Daily Creole:

Pictures and sceneries of every description are faithfully copied on
beautiful vases, or on other china utensils. The painting and gilding
will remain as long as the china will last. (8)

Lux's skill at decoration is consistent with the finely painted scenes of the Mississippi at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the rococo revival vase shown in Plate X. The subject was appropriate for the original owner, Thomas F. Byrne (b. 1815), a Baton Rouge cotton factor.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Within the vocabulary of rococo revival design, floral and foliage sprays and arabesques were quite fashionable along the Mississippi and often were elaborately rendered on everything from porcelain to textiles (see Pl. III). French rococo revival porcelain was a popular choice, some of it bought in France. In 1843 the Paris porcelain manufacturers Edouard Honore and Jacob Petit (1796-1868), and the porcelain decorator Louis Marie Francois Rihouet, filled an order for a dinner service for D'Evereux, the Greek revival house built about 1840 for the Natchez, Mississippi, planter William St. John Elliott (1800-1855) (see Pl. V). About 1855, Daniel Marsh Frost (1823-1900) and his wife purchased in France a dinner service decorated with vividly colored floral bouquets and bold gilt rococo revival scrolls that form the feet and handles on several objects (see Pl. XIV). Petit, who popularized the rococo revival style in Paris porcelain, is credited with creating the boldly modeled candelabra bases in a rainbow of colors shown in Plate VI. The central chinoiserie figures resemble rococo statuettes originally produced in the eighteenth century by Ludwigsburg, Meissen, and other European porcelain manufactories as conversation pieces. They served a similar function, though on a larger scale, for Duncan Farrar Kenner (1813-1889), the Louisiana sugar planter who owned the candelabra. (9)