Empire style

The Empire style, French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃.piːʁ],the second phase of Romanticism, is an early-19th-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts that flourished between 1800 and 1815 during the Consulate and the First French Empire periods, although its life span lasted until the late 1820s (or more depending on each country). From France it spread into much of Europe and the United States.

The style originated in and takes its name from the rule of Napoleon I in the First French Empire, when it was intended to idealize Napoleon's leadership and the French state. The style corresponds in that intent to the Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands, Federal style in the United States, and the Regency style in Britain. The previous style in France was called Louis XVI style.

History

The style developed and elaborated the Directoire style of the immediately preceding period, which aimed at a simpler, but still elegant evocation of the virtues of the Ancient Roman Republic: