Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine

Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine (respectively, born Aug. 22, 1764, Paris—died Sept. 5, 1838, Paris; born Sept. 20, 1762, Pontoise, Fr.—died Oct. 10, 1853, Paris) were a pair of French architects and interior designers who carried out many building and decorative projects during the reign of Napoleon I and helped create the influential Empire style (q.v.) of interior decoration.

Percier and Fontaine became acquainted with each other while both were studying architecture in Paris. Percier won the Prix de Rome in 1786 and spent the following years studying in Rome with Fontaine, who became his lifelong friend. They returned to Paris in 1790 and set up their own practice; their work eventually attracted the attention of Josephine Bonaparte, Napoleon’s wife, and she engaged them to renovate her Château de Malmaison (1800–02). From then on the Bonapartes became their principal patrons.

In their subsequent decorative work Percier and Fontaine virtually invented the severe but elegant Neoclassical blend of Greco-Roman and Egyptian forms and motifs that became known as the Empire style. They redid interiors, walls, and ceilings and designed furniture, accessories, and ornament for the old royal palaces and the new residences of the Bonapartes. Much of their work was done on the Louvre and the Tuileries palaces; they designed the arcades of the rue de Rivoli and the rue de Castiglione along the Louvre and designed the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel connecting the Louvre and Tuileries (1806–08). They also worked on the Château de Saint-Cloud and the Château de Fontainebleau. They also influenced taste through their publications, including Palais, maisons et autres édifices modernes dessinés à Rome (1798; “Palaces, Houses, and Other Modern Buildings Drawn in Rome”) and Recueil de décorations intérierures (1801 and 1812; “Collection of Interior Designs”).

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Financing grew scarce in the later years of the Empire, and the return of the Bourbons in 1814 aborted several grandiose Napoleonic building projects and sent Percier into permanent retirement. Fontaine remained active, designing the sombre Neoclassical Chapelle Expiatoire (1815–26) in Paris and continuing to restore the Louvre-Tuileries complex under both Charles X and Louis-Philippe. He retired in 1848.