History

Revel was slowly built up at the will of a king. It will always retain this image. Philippe VI of Valois was anxious to unite France. In the South-west, where there were still many scattered English possessions, fortified townships began to spring up. In 1342 the streets of Revel, a royal fortified town, began to be laid out geometrically around a huge covered market, the largest to be seen nowadays in our country, and of which the timberwork remains an undisputed masterpiece of popular art. France began, and little by little confirmed her position, at the heart of the larger European civilisation. She absorbed the many influences from abroad and, in particular during the reign of Francois I, those of dazzling Italy.
Lifestyles were soon going to change. The day-to-day living within the powerful nations would become more settled; the coffers designed for constant travelling would give way to furniture: cabinets, tables, cupboards and writing desks would begin to appear. And a little later would come the French style. A new era began with the style of Louis XIII: furniture was decorated with ebony, inlaying or marquetry. Cabinet making emerged. Under Louis XIV it became the fashion to veneer with different coloured elements: mother-of-pearl, copper, pewter; in the XVIIIth Century it was marquetry; under the Empire mahogany inlaying dominated, whilst the Restoration had a penchant for the common woods.
From the xixth Century onwards the works of the great names: Boulle, Oeben, Riesener, Saunier, Roentgen, Cramer were often reproduced, particularly in the workshops of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris. It is there that the youngAlexandre Monoury worked his apprenticeship under the guidance of his mentor the great Dubois, purveyor to the King. Born in Versailles in 1837, he established himself in Revel in 1888 after a somewhat romantic but thorough training, and founded his own furniture dynasty, which was to become the greatest French centre of cabinet making. A true virtuoso of marquetry, Alexandre Monoury devoted himself in the first place to furniture restoring. From the beginning he trained his own apprentices. Antique dealers and collectors entrusted him with their most precious pieces, but soon this Parisian clientele grew and then took a liking to his reproductions and his personal creations inspired in him by the furniture of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries. His success was overwhelming. Three years later Revel already had a number of specialist centres of stylised furniture. It grew to such an extent that by the end of the century the national output was virtually divided between Revel and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris.