Side chair (voyeuse à genoux) 1780 - 1790

This side chair was made by Louis Magdeleine Pluvinet in France sometime in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. It’s a curious object. Voyeuse à genoux literally means “kneeling voyeur,” which might lead you to imagine someone using it for illicit spying. But its purpose was much more banal. These chairs were designed specifically for people to sit facing the back, resting their arms on the upholstered top rail, while watching card games. They were fashionable accoutrements in the lavish homes of the French aristocracy. Their existence tells us a lot about the culture of the time, and how furniture design served the rituals of courtly sociability. We can see that the chair employs the visual vocabulary of neoclassical design that was so popular at the time, reflecting an interest in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. To understand this piece fully, one might examine the pattern books of the day. These and other historical sources can help us understand the social conditions that shaped its design and use.