Empire styles, beginning with Napoleon Bonaparte’s First French Empire, was a particularly influential aesthetic throughout Europe and America for much of the 19th Century. The style’s creators wanted to instill pride in the French people for their state and leader, meshing a spread of Greek and Roman details with a simpler aesthetic, neither over-the-top nor strict and austere. It was this combination of richness and modesty that carried into other styles of the day, and later styles of the century.
Empire Style: 1800 – 1820
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