18th Century Textile & Wallpaper
The French "art de vivre".
In the 18th century a french way of life began. Initiated under Louis XIV then Louis XV and Louis XVI, the taste for precious and refined decorations and furnitures, adorned with acanthus leaves, rushes, foliage, gilding and silks, decorated with laquers from abroad underlines a know-how carried in particular by royal manufacturers such as Gobelins for furniture, Jouy-en-Josas for Indiennes or Savonnerie for carpets.
Lyon, already famous for its silks, will work together with the painters of Parisian factories, leaving aside the Italian taste resulting from the Renaissance to adopt naturalism linked to the growing knowledge of fauna and flora. Lyon textiles have a very good reputation and are exported beyond the court and the borders of France and Europe.
Siècle des Lumières, of the Encyclopedia but also of experimentation, where technical and artistic innovations coexist - the hot-air balloon thus becomes a decorative element on the Toiles de Jouy - the 18th is also resolutely turned towards elsewhere: importation of Indiennes, discovery of distant eastern lands through maritime expeditions, taste for Chinese items are plebiscited.
