Illustration: Ruffier Leutner. Diane Chasseuresse, crochet on net curtain, 1867.
The Exposition Universale of 1867 which was held in Paris was another in a set of internationally toned exhibitions. Although it is often assumed, and particularly by the British, that the Great Exhibition of 1851 held in London was the first of its kind, this was not so. Although the Great Exhibition was the first international exhibition to be held on such a vast scale, France had been holding various manufacturing and industrially based exhibitions since the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.
The 1867 Exhibition was dominated by French participation, taking up fifteen thousand of the fifty thousand entries, while Britain only managed less than half of that at just over six thousand, while the United States was on a much more reduced scale producing just over seven hundred entries. In many respects this ratio of entries to the exhibition reflects the state of the decorative arts and their corresponding manufacturing strength. The decorative arts in the middle of the nineteenth century was still dominated by France, and although Britain had made inroads and would increasingly do so over the rest of the century, it still struggled to give France a viable opposition.
Textiles were particularly important to France and its economy. There were a whole range of companies with long-standing traditions in woven and printed textiles, tapestry, carpet, and lace. Exports were an important factor and the high standard of production often tended to favour French companies over British and American rivals that tended to place more emphasis on quantity over quality. Although French products were inevitably more expensive than those produced elsewhere in Europe, those companies that dealt in the decorative and interior markets were astute enough to understand that catering to perceived elitism was a lucrative market, particularly to those markets outside of France.
Illustration: Ruffier Leutner. Arms of the City of Paris, crochet on net curtain, 1867.
The two examples illustrated in this article are of work that was shown at the 1867 exhibition by Ruffier Leutner. They represent two lace curtains using crochet pattern work over net. The curtains were meant to hang in front of a window so as to catch the full effect of the design work seen through the near transparent net background. Ruffier Leutner were based in Lyon, the heart of the French silk industry and an important area for textile weaving and printing.
The first illustration shows a decorative panel copied from the eighteenth century artist Claude Gilet and represents the goddess Diana ready for the hunt, dogs and stags are also included in the panel. The second decorative curtain represents the heraldic arms of the City of Paris. Both of these decorative pieces are unashamedly classical in derivation and owe nothing to the phenomenon of the Victorian Gothic Revival which was in full flow in 1867. In fact there is little to represent the Gothic movement at the exhibition apart from many of the entries that were derived from British companies.
This is not to say that the Gothic Revival had no effect on French interiors and the decorative arts in general. However, France had long traded in its classically inspired decorative arts which it had honed to near perfection as far as the market was concerned. Admittedly this was all part of the perceived elitism of its national style and even though Europe went through many revivals and movements throughout the nineteenth century and although some French companies did partake, there was still a core of the domestic and export decoration market that still played the theme of classical elitism. It is no coincidence that much of the classically inspired decoration produced by France during the nineteenth century was of a pre-revolutionary kind. That this also played into the perception of the grandeur and finesse of a certain decorative period in French history, was also no coincidence. It seems to have been part of a systematically inspired export marketing trend that proved particularly lucrative in America and has remained largely intact to this day.
Reference links:
Antique French Textiles For Designers (Schiffer Book)
Patterns in a Revolution: French Printed Textiles, 1759-1821
French Tapestries & Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum
Braquenie: French Textiles and Interiors Since 1823
France: An illustrated guide to textile collections in French museums (Textile collections of the world)
Masterpieces Of French Tapestry: Medieval, Renaissance, Modern
French Interiors: The Art of Elegance
French Interiors of the Eighteenth Century
French Furniture and Interior Decoration of the 18th Century
Interior View of the Grande Galerie, 16th-19th Century Giclee Poster Print, 18x24
The New Eighteenth-Century Style: Rediscovering a French Décor
The Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
French Scenic Wallpaper 1795-1865
