Boucher, Juste-François Plate 3(a). “Petite table à tiroir. Petite Chiffonière”

Juste-François Boucher. (1736 – 1782) Plate 3(a).  “Petite table à tiroir.  Petite Chiffonière.”  From Livre de Meubles....

Paris, ca. 1780. Folio. 7 1/4 x 12 3/8 (image). Engraving. Hand color. Very good condition. 

In this comprehensive snapshot of French design, Boucher offers decorators, architects, and cabinetmakers a print source for the latest designs of the 1780s. With features ranging from garden gates to candlesticks, from library cases to bathtubs, each group of these prints (sold by subscription in cahiers) showcased the many styles of the period: English, Rhenish, Italian, Roman, and, of course, French. In order to produce the highly-coordinated rooms demanded by fashionable customers, craftsmen (including cabinetmakers, metalsmiths, architects, and ceramicists) needed a common design source. Books like Boucher's provided necessary, cutting-edge information to those who made and purchased decorative arts in the eighteenth century. In the twenty-first century, prints like these lend classic French taste to modern interiors.