The Regency style's debt to Napoleon

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2004 by Paula A. Baxter

England's greatest worry at the dawn of the nineteenth century was the growing power of France under Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). England had been at war with France ever since the French Revolution took a bloody turn in 1793. Napoleon's constant victories led to his inexorable rise from first consul to usurper of the French throne in 1804. One by one, he conquered neighboring nations and set up rulers who were often members of his family.

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Nonetheless, the English were always fascinated by French culture and continued to display a passion for French fashions and goods. Although George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV; r. 1820-1830), declared the French emperor his personal nemesis, he kept a sharp eye on decorative innovations in Napoleon's empire.

Prince George, who was regent from 1811 to 1820, presided over English society and sought to be as active a royal patron of the arts as his revered Stuart ancestor Charles I (r. 1625-1649). (1) A new decorative mode, christened the Regency style in recognition of George, flowered in architecture, interior design, and decoration between 1783 and 1837. (2) Across the English Channel, Napoleon gave his own imprimatur to the Empire style, developed between 1804 and 1815, which echoed his imperial ambitions.

Various aspects of early nineteenth-century romanticism shaped the new styles both in England and France. These were the cult of personality, typified by the tragic Byronic hero and the victorious military hero; the appeal of ancient, exotic civilizations; the love of luxurious materials; and new interpretations of traditional and nationalistic ideals. The continuous military conflict of the Napoleonic Wars exerted an inevitable impact on fashionable decoration. Martial designs crept into decoration and created a vogue for tented beds, pennant style draperies, saber-legged chairs, camp furniture, and boldly ornamented interiors.

England's Regency style was a natural outgrowth of the neoclassical style that prevailed in eighteenth-century Europe. That style, in turn, was derived from the study of ancient monuments and their aesthetics. The English interpretation, by Robert Adam (1728-1792) and Sir William Chambers (1723-1796), leaned toward Greek and Palladian modes. Adam depended on a light, airy approach to antique forms and was not academically precise. He was much patronized by George III (r. 1760-1820) and his courtiers, but had fallen into disfavor with the Prince of Wales, who turned to such other architects and decorators as Henry Holland (1745-1806) and John Crace (1754-1819). The renewed study of archaeological findings contributed to a more precise sense of antique references. The illustrations that accompanied these studies, more academic than Adam's, were eagerly embraced by the prince and his artists.

George III had forbidden the Prince of Wales an active military or political role, and so he had turned to a life of pleasure and conspicuous consumption and became a leading patron of the arts in England. Many of his building and decorative projects were intended to both emulate and surpass Napoleon's achievements. He collected paintings and sculpture, but he had a special eye for objets d'art and interior furnishings and a passion for militaria.

The evolving Regency style began to favor more intimate interior arrangements, suites of furniture, innovative window treatments, carefully placed ornament, evocative colors drawn from antique sources, and the integration of newly developed materials. The sources of inspiration broadened to include chinoiserie, Indian, Gothic, and Tudor design elements (all enthusiastically adopted by the prince regent). The greatest monument to George's taste was his palace, the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, remodeled under the direction of the architect John Nash (1752-1835) between 1815 and 1822. The prince's passion for artful interior detail was given full rein in the pavilion, where framed paintings were banned so that the rooms would be unified in their thematic designs and furnishings.

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The furniture designer Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) and the dilettante Thomas Hope (c. 1770-1831) provided critical impetus for English Regency decoration. Sheraton's last work, The Cabinet Maker and Artist's Encyclopedia, features specific aspects of the new style. A window treatment entitled To the Memory of Lord Nelson (Pl. II) evokes the cult of personality that developed during this period. The great naval victories of Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) popularized many decorative motifs, including ropes, anchors, and dolphins. His death at Trafalgar, where he defeated the French, made tributes to Nelson popular even in household decoration. Another plate in the Cabinet Maker, the Sofa Bed (Pl. IV), exemplifies an important merging of Grecian and French Empire forms in the draped bed set flush with the wall, the newly popular "Trafalgar chair" with saber legs and cutout back, and ornate window curtains. Sheraton's plate illustrates the type of furnishings that would become popular in both France and England.