Louis-Quinze

(16’i-kanz’), a. [F.] An epithet designating the style of French architecture and decoration which succeeded the Louis-Quatorze style,and characterized the reign of Louis XV. (1715-74). In it the peculiarities of the preceding style are carried to extremes; the severe sense of proportion and measure which always characterized the magnificence of the seventeenth century is replaced by a complete disregard of symmetry and of the interdependence of ma es, by an elongated treatment of the foliations of the scroll, and by a profusion of shell-work of crimped and fantastic but meaningle conventionality. In its most debased and tawdry form, ornament of this style is termed rococo.