Louis XV furniture
Louis XV furniture was designed not for the vast palace state rooms of the Versailles of Louis XIV, but for the smaller, more intimate salons created by Louis XV and by his mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and Madame DuBarry. It included several new types of furniture, including the commode and the chiffonier, and many pieces, particularly chairs and tables, were designed to be moved easily rearranged or moved from room to room, depending upon the kind of function.
With the death of Louis XIV on 1 September 1715, his grandson, Louis XV, born in 1710, became King. Because of his young age, France was ruled by a Regent, Philippe of Orleans, until 1723. During this period, the style of furniture changed little from the Louis XIV period; it was massive, lavishly decorated and solemn, designed for the gigantic state halls of the new Palace of Versailles. In 1722 Louis XV moved from Paris, where he had lived with the Regent, to Versailles, began his own rule, and gradually imposed his own taste on the arts, architecture, and furniture.
Bourbon claim to the Spanish throne
Philip of France, Duke of Anjou, was the second son of Louis, "le Grand Dauphin" and Maria Anna of Bavaria, known as "Dauphine Victoire", a younger brother of Louis, Duke of Burgundy and an uncle of Louis XV of France.
Philip was born at the Palace of Versailles in France. His older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, was in line to the throne right after his father, "Le Grand Dauphin", thus leaving him and his younger brother, Charles, Duke of Berry little expectation to ever rule over France. However, his fortune (and that of his grandfather Louis XIV) started looking up when the degenerate last monarch of Spain, Charles II, fell ill. Both of Charles's marriages had failed to produce any offspring.
Charles II married Marie Louise of Orléans (1662–1689), eldest daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, the only sibling of Louis XIV, and his first wife Princess Henrietta of England. It is likely that Charles was impotent, and no children were born. Marie Louise became deeply depressed and died at 26, ten years after their marriage, leaving 28-year-old Charles heartbroken. Still in desperate need of a male heir, the next year he married the 23-year-old Palatine princess Maria Anna of Neuburg, a daughter of Philip William, Elector of the Palatinate, and sister-in-law of his uncle Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. However, this marriage was no more successful than the first in producing the much-desired heir.