Side chair (one of a pair) ca. 1815-20 Circle of Josef Danhauser The years between 1815 and 1848 in Germany and Austria were characterized by a conservative political and cultural climate. The period and its style of interior decoration are both called Biedermeier, after a fictional character invented by the poet Ludwig Eichrodt (1827-1892) in the 1850s. Although the term invokes qualities typical of the German bourgeoisie (unpretentiousness, thrift, domesticity), the origin of the Biedermeier furniture style was totally aristocratic. The simple, elegant forms with their clean lines and light-colored wood veneer derived from the ornamentally restrained furniture that had been made for the royal and princely households of Germany, Austria, and France beginning in the late eighteenth century.1 For this market, even Parisian ébénistes, such as Canabas, Saunier, Jacob, and Molitor,2 produced simple mahogany pieces that were set apart only by their excellent materials and outstanding cr