Louis XVI style, also called Louis Seize, is a style of architecture, furniture, decoration and art which developed in France during the 19-year reign of Louis XVI (1774–1792), just before the French Revolution. It saw the final phase of the Baroque style as well as the birth of French Neoclassicism. The style was a reaction against the elaborate ornament of the preceding Baroque period. It was inspired in part by the discoveries of Ancient Roman paintings, sculpture and architecture in Herculaneum and Pompeii. Its features included the straight column, the simplicity of the post-and-lintel, the architrave of the Greek temple. It also expressed the Rousseau-inspired values of returning to nature and the view of nature as an idealized and wild but still orderly and inherently worthy model for the arts to follow.
Image: Fauteuil Jacob cabinet méridienne Versailles
Image: Château de Bagatelle, Paris 17 July 2016 004
Image: Jean henri riesener, angoliera, 1785 ca
In classical antiquity, the cornucopia, from Latin cornu (horn) and copia (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers, or nuts.
Allegory of Fortune (1658) by Salvator Rosa, representing Fortuna, the Goddess of luck, with the horn of plenty
Greek vase of Plouton with a cornucopia and Demeter with a sceptre and plough, by the Orestes Painter, 440-430 BC, ceramic, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece
Roman statue of Fortuna, copy after a Greek original from the 4th century BC, marble, Vatican Museums, Rome