Between 1795 and 1799, post-revolutionary France was ruled by the French Directorate, after
which a particular style of furniture design and fashion was named: “Directoire”. The style is
characterised by its interest in Greco-Roman antiquity as a model for a democratic culture. This
is reflected in the aesthetic strictness of form and the classical allusions in the console tables,
whose sculptural profile heads, some wearing laurel wreaths, derive from images on ancient
coins. In addition, the sphinxes in the supraport of the architrave around the stove alcove reflect
the “Egyptomania” that was sparked off by Napoleon’s expedition to the Nile in 1798.