Vintage Biedermeier Sofa, Germany

Sofa with elegant curved lines, a masterpiece of the bourgeois style of the first quarter of the 19th century in Germany and Austria (1815-1848), although it also spread to Sweden and northern Europe.

The sofa presents an intricate decoration of palmettes on the skirt, arms and legs, as well as similar horns of plenty, elements still fed by the European Empire style.

In blond mahogany veneer, characterized by decorative elements with stylized and carved palmettes that are the counterpoint to a sinuous and elegant structure.

Biedermeier style (1815-1848). The Biedermeier style is a style that characterizes German and Austrian furniture approximately between 1815 (Congress of Vienna) and 1848 (beginning of the revolutionary movements). Its main features are simplicity and functionality, and the destination of origin. Biedermeier first assumed a derogatory connotation: the word comes from “Bieder”, or “simpleton” and from “Meir”, one of the most common German surnames at the time and was the name of a “simpleton” character in a comedy from Ludwig. Eichrodt. This term meant the conservative petty bourgeois, concerned only with his own family reality. Although in a derogatory way the term exactly represents the new sociopolitical situation in which the bourgeois is forced or resigned to abandon the desires for democracy and freedom. The center of life therefore becomes the home, which is no longer characterized by unbridled luxury but by comfort and practicality. As a result, Biedermeier furniture is functional, comfortable, and easy to come by. The style is an evolution of the Empire style towards a greater simplification, without ornamental and outdated elements, lighter, linear and curved shapes, lighter colors.