French furniture

There was also a conservative artisanal rural tradition of French country furniture which remained unbroken until the advent of the railroads in the mid-nineteenth century.

Furniture made in provincial centers such as Blois and Orléans in the Loire valley, and at Lyon or Liège (Not part of France politically but within its cultural orbit), followed at some distance the design innovations that were initiated in the luxury trades of Paris, often with a time lag that could amount to decades.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, French furniture of the classic period 1660-1815, has been collected as passionately by non-French amateurs, with the English in the historical lead,[1] and has set record prices consistently, since the Hamilton Palace sale of 1882,[2] with the result that it is represented in many national museums.

Favoured craftsmen would be eligible for premises in the galleries of the Palais du Louvre, a practice that had been initiated on a small scale under Henri IV.

Art Nouveau provided one form of reaction to the battle of the historicist styles, and Modernism marked a more rigorous break with the past.