The most famous of all cabinet-makers, arguably, was André Charles Boulle (1642-1732). Certainly he proved the most influential, his name becoming the generic for a distinctive style of elaborately inlaid furniture which continued to be made throughout 18th and 19th-century Europe. His genius was to combine boldly inventive techniques and designs with extraordinary virtuosity – and to give perfect expression to the sumptuous magnificence required by the court of the Sun King.

A sense of that opulence and extravagance – and the ambition – which characterised Louis XIV’s Paris is compellingly evoked in the first major exhibition devoted to the art of Boulle, “André Charles Boulle: A New Style for Europe”, at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Frankfurt. Gone are the white, light minimalist interiors of Richard Meier’s landmark building: courtesy of the interior decorator Juan Pablo Molyneux, MAK’s galleries have been transformed into rich, dark spaces out of which glow gilt and patinated bronze, silvery inlays, ivory, tortoiseshell, silk and gold threads, and lush pigments.

Some 44 lenders, private and public, have contributed the 150 works of art and many – furniture, paintings, tapestries, sculpture, metalwork and design drawings – have never previously been exhibited, lent or even photographed. A case in point is Boulle’s masterpiece of floral marquetry – a great armoire on loan from the Hermitage, dated 1690-1700, which has left St Petersburg for the first time since 1888.

Inlaid with various woods on tortoiseshell, its door panels feature vases of carefully delineated exotic flowers, as well as birds and butterflies, all of astonishing naturalism. Parrots perched amid acorns and oak leaves adorn the side panels, the foliage and scrolling acanthus leaves spilling out of their frames. It is easy to see how the freedom and fluidity of line and sense of movement in these ‘paintings in wood’ astounded his contemporaries; it is no surprise to learn that Boulle had first trained as an artist and draughtsman.

It was floral marquetries such as these which established the young Boulle’s reputation. By the age of 30 he was lodged in the Galeries du Louvre alongside the leading artists of the day; in 1672 he was elevated to ébéniste de roi on the recommendation of Colbert who described him as the “most skilful cabinet-maker in Paris”. Crucially, this royal privilege entitled him to contravene guild rules and carry out the work of more than one profession: chaser, gilder and sculptor as well as a maker of marquetry. By 1700, all the constituent parts of his furniture were, uniquely, made in-house.

This facility with a whole range of materials singles out Boulle. He was the first to combine marquetry panels with lavish inlays of brass or tin in wood or tortoiseshell. New and complex techniques were devised in order to combine these not particularly compatible materials. Before Boulle, brass had only been used for small details. Now, increasingly substantial cast components might also be gilt and chased or elaborate pieces of sculpture in their own right: the wonderful gilt-bronze lobsters clinging on to the base of the barometer and thermometer made for the comte de Toulouse, admiral of France, are a joy, and presage the zoological devices employed by the rococo goldsmiths Meissonnier and Germain.

The achievement of this show is to place Boulle in the artistic context of his age, offering insights into how everything from painting and sculpture to Mughal-inspired textiles may have inspired his work. Although almost invariably described as “baroque”, his aesthetic and vocabulary is revealed as an evolution of the flamboyant, architectural and classicising traditions of the late renaissance.

Moreover, the show, and particularly its massive, scholarly catalogue, present the fruits of some 30 years of research carried out by Jean Nérée Ronfort and others of the Boulle Association, establishing a – still contentious – chronology. Boulle effectively created a new aesthetic and formal vocabulary (he is credited, for instance, with inventing the commode and the bureau plat). No doubt the ingenuity of his confections proved a major appeal to the European kings, aristocrats and princely merchants who commissioned or acquired his furniture, clocks, chandeliers and the like, but it is their bravura magnificence which has ensured their continued favour with much the same people: Boulle’s works remain the consummate status-conferring luxury goods of the rich and powerful. They were the preferred props for princely portraits in the 18th and 19th centuries, and still grace the offices of monarchs and heads of state. That they continue to inspire craftsmen today is revealed in the small contemporary section concluding this admirable show.

André Charles Boulle (1642-1732): A new style for Europe, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, until January 31, 2010. www.angewandtekunst-frankfurt.de