A Louis XV sedan chair

Black painted wood carrier chair. The dome is covered with leather and edged with nails. The angles are with rocaille moldings and gold-colored rechampis. Moulded rods frame the different panels with polychrome decorations of roses, daisies, lilacs on acanthus garlands. The front door is decorated with a medallion representing a putto with a quiver. This ornamentation responds to the back panel, of a similar iconography, a putto framed by a medallion in its center, all surrounded by garlands of acanthus leaves with flowers ending in a basket filled with flowers.
Old windows, revealing an interior upholstered in red damask braided with gold.
The chair has four side irons to slide the chair sticks.
French work
Louis XV period
Restorations of use
H. 173 x W.71 x D. 95 cm

The sedan chair, which arrived directly from England around 1640, started out as a means of urban transportation that was quickly taken up by the nobility, who saw in it not only their comfort, but also the opportunity to display their social affluence. The large wooden panels allowed the owner to display his coat of arms, or paintings whose quality and finesse suggested the social status of the owner.
Initially intended to protect the nobleman from bad weather or the inconveniences of a dirty street, the chair also became a means of crossing the city out of sight. One even went as far as entering the halls of the great houses in a chair. It is said that some nobles even used it to move around the Palace of Versailles. The Revolution came and cut off the use of this means of transport, which was probably too "old regime" for the times that were coming.