Charles Percier

Charles Percier ([ʃaʁl pɛʁsje]; 22 August 1764 – 5 September 1838) was a neoclassical French architect, interior decorator and designer, who worked in a close partnership with Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, originally his friend from student days.

[1] This afforded the young Charles Portier an opportunity to observe first hand the lifestyles of the wealthy nobility in a palace that he would, years later, play a major role in rejuvenating.

From the age of 12 onward, Percier attended a free school for teaching drawing, an establishment whose mission was to provide access into the art world for poor students.

[3] A 19th century observer noted the following about their intertwined careers: "It is surprising what a complete mastery these young men in a few years contrived to exercise over the tastes of their day.

[8] Bonaparte thought highly of their work and gave them responsibility for some of the most prestigious projects of the Consulate and the Empire periods, including the creation of the Rue de Rivoli and the development of the Louvre Palace.

[9]:199 They refurbished and restructured the Tuileries Palace that, prior to be burnt down during the Paris Commune, faced the Louvre across the Place du Carrousel and the parterres.

In that prominent square, Percier and Fontaine designed the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1807–1808), commemorating the Napoleonic victories of the Third and Fourth Coalitions.

[8] In working on these projects, they designed every detail of the interior decors: state beds, sculptural side tables, and other furniture, wall lights and candlesticks, chandeliers, door hardware, textiles, and wallpaper.

[9]:220 In 1812, Percier and Fontaine published the Recueil de décoration intérieure concernant tout ce qui rapporte à l'ameublement ("Collection of interior designs: Everything that relates to furniture") with its engravings in a spare outline technique.

[9]:33 Unlike Pierre Fontaine, whose diary relates his career path from the Consulate until the end of the July Monarchy, Percier did not leave memoirs, but, instead, he bequeathed his collections of drawings to the Institut de France.