Author(s): Michele Lalande

European

With the restoration of the Pompadour apartments at Versailles, there is a renewed interest in the opulent fashions in interior decoration of the eighteenth century. The use of turquoise with gold accents, the lush velvet upholstery and the expensive iridescent wall hangings all bear witness to a style that indulged in spite of revolutions, wars, looting and fires. Lalande and Trillard reveal the harmony between antique extravagance and contemporary decoration that characterises the revival of this style. They survey thirty excellent examples of this quintessential blending of refined detail and showy affluence.