Louis-Auguste-Alfred Beurdeley specialized in interpretations of 18th Century furniture, notably Louis XVI, and became the most celebrated ébéniste during the Second Empire (1852-1870), supplying furniture to the Garde Meuble Impérial, whose growth Napoleon III supported. Napoleon III encouraged the manufacture of luxury goods which had been promoted under Louis XIV but was permitted to lapse with the fall of the Bourbons in 1830. Cf. D. Ledoux-Lebard Le Mobilier Français Du XIXe Siècle, 1984, pp. 77-82.