The gilt bronze mountings of the furniture became less massive and much more elaborate:  the curled endive ornament was very much in vogue; the acanthus foliage followed the curves of the commode; busts and heads of women, cupids, satyrs terminating in foliage, suited the design and decoration of the more fanciful shapes; and Caffieri, who is the great master of this beautiful and highly ornate enrichment, introduced Chinese figures and dragons into his designs.  The amount of spirit imparted into the chasing of this ormolu is simply marvellous—­it has never been equalled and could not be excelled.  Time has now mellowed the colour of the woodwork it adorns; and the tint of the gold with which it is overlaid, improved by the lights and shadows caused by the high relief of the work and the consequent darkening of the parts more depressed while the more prominent ornaments have been rubbed bright from time to time, produces an effect which is exceedingly elegant and rich.  One cannot wonder that connoisseurs are prepared to pay such large sums for genuine specimens, or that clever imitations are exceedingly costly to produce.

Illustrations are given from some of the more notable examples of decorative furniture of this period, which were sold in 1882 at the celebrated Hamilton Palace sale, together with the sums they realised:  also of specimens in the South Kensington Museum in the Jones Collection.

We must also remember, in considering the meubles de luxe of this time, that in 1753 Louis XV. had made the Sevres Porcelain Manufactory a State enterprise; and later, as that celebrated undertaking progressed, tables and cabinets were ornamented with plaques of the beautiful and choice pate tendre, the delicacy of which was admirably adapted to enrich the light and frivolous furnishing of the dainty boudoir of a Madame du Barri or a Madame Pompadour.

Another famous artist in the delicate bronze mountings of the day was Pierre Gouthiere.  He commenced work some years later than Caffieri, being born in 1740; and, like his senior fellow craftsman, did not confine his attention to furniture, but exercised his fertility of design, and his passion for detail, in mounting bowls and vases of jasper, of Sevres and of Oriental porcelain.  The character of his work is less forcible than that of Caffieri, and comes nearer to what we shall presently recognise as the Louis Seize, or Marie Antoinette style, to which period his work more properly belongs:  in careful finish of minute details, it more resembles the fine goldsmith’s work of the Renaissance.

[Illustration:  Bureau Du Roi.  Made for Louis XV. by Riesener. (Collection of “Mobilier National.”) (From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans.) Period:  Louis XV.]

Gouthiere was employed extensively by Madame du Barri; and at her execution, in 1793, he lost the enormous balance of 756,000 francs which was due to him, but which debt the State repudiated, and the unfortunate man died in extreme poverty, the inmate of an almshouse.