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.
Marie Leszczyńska
In 1723, the Duke of Bourbon had become the Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. The Regent was highly dominated by his lover, Madame de Prie. There were long-ongoing negotiations of a marriage between Marie and the now widowed Duke of Bourbon: Madame de Prie favored the match, as she did not perceive the reputedly unattractive Marie as a threat to her. The marriage negotiations, however, were soon overshadowed when a marriage for King Louis XV was given priority. That same year, the young king fell ill and, fearing the consequences of the unmarried king dying without an heir, the Duc suggested getting the young King married as soon as possible. Louis XV was already engaged, to Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, who had been brought to France as his future queen some years earlier and was referred to as the Infanta-Queen. However the Infanta was still a child, and could not be expected to conceive for several years; while Louis XV, being fifteen, had already hit puberty. After Louis fell seriously ill, there was a great fear that he would die before he had time to have an heir to the throne. Should that happen, the throne would pass to the Orléans line. This was an undesirable prospect for the Duke of Bourbon, who himself would in fact have preferred that the throne should pass to the Spanish line rather than to the Orléans line. The engagement between Louis XV and the Spanish Infanta was broken, and the latter was sent back to Spain, much to the chagrin of the Spanish. The Duke of Bourbon and Madame de Prie began negotiations for the immediate marriage of the King to Marie.