Towards a History of the Origin and Diffusion of a Late Renaissance Chair Design: The Caquetoire or Caquteuse Chair in France, Scotland and England

This article explores the origin and evolution of caquetoire chairs in France and their influence on chairs in Britain. The term caquetoire (or the closely related term, caqueteuse) derives from the French caqueter, meaning to gossip or to prattle. It is applied today in France to tall, narrow-backed, lightly built chairs with open arms and trapezoidal seats; and in eastern Scotland and in the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire to heavily built chairs with many of the same features as the French examples. It is a type well known to students of Renaissance furniture and marked a break with earlier, more heavily built types of chairs. The type is intriguing because it has no obvious antecedents, and because of the differences between the French, Scottish and Salisbury examples. This article discusses the difficulties in identifying caquetoire chairs in the historical record; the range of French, Scottish and Salisbury chairs currently referred to as caquetoires; and the emergence of the French examples. It then considers some possible predecessors to the type, focusing particularly on a chair shown in a tapestry whose significance has not previously been recognised.