Oct
Saturday Salon: Follow that Sedan Chair!
Everyone has their guilty pleasures. BBC costume dramas, pumpkin spice lattes, lemon verbena bubble bath….
High on that list for me are antiques stores. After all, they’re a brilliant way to interact with the objects that the people in our books used in their everyday lives. (I’ll just keep telling myself that.) Museums, for the most part, have only the cream, the items that are special because they’re exceptional examples of their kind. There are, to be fair, folk museums and local history museums that try to collect items that people who didn’t live in Versailles would use, but they don’t usually let you behind the ropes to play with those.
Do you know what’s really dangerous? Antiques stores online. A friend recently introduced me to a sight called 1st Dibs, a compendium of various antiques dealers who list their wares online.
Look what they had on sale earlier this month:
Yes, you’re seeing that correctly. That is, indeed, a sedan chair. An eighteenth century Venetian sedan chair, to be precise. (For the 1st dib link and more detail shots, click here.)
Can’t you just see Lady B being carried through Venice by a matched set of perspiring footmen in white wigs and brightly colored livery?
It’s very easy to imagine a masked lady leaning through that wide window, blowing a kiss or passing a message to a lover. It’s fascinating to look at it and imagine what it would feel like to be carried along in that rather unwieldy thing, swaying with the steps of the bearers as they wove in and out of traffic, with a link boy carrying a brightly lit torch running ahead.
It makes you stop and think about the sort of environment where such a contraption would be useful: a world where streets are narrow, sometimes too narrow for a carriage. A world with open gutters and without sidewalks, where it’s safer to be carried than to soil one’s shoes. A world where physical manpower is cheap.
Then there’s the detail, the paint job. The outside is leather, richly decorated and gilded. Can you imagine a car being painted with that delicate design of leaves and flowers, with that gilding, and those ornamental whatnots at the top? This is a society that revels in display, that can take a mundane and practical object and turn it into a statement of beauty and power.
What do you see when you look at that sedan chair? Have there been objects that have worked in a similar way on your imagination?
Oct 27, 2012
8:14 am
I think it would be intriguing if there were velvet drapes shielding the occupant from view. The imagination could run riot! Who could be in there? Maybe a mysterious, beautiful lady, elegantly dressed, with powdered wig and a beauty spot artfully placed, heading for an assignation with a lover.
I always wonder exactly what the ladies of the ton carried in their reticules. Were they receptacles for all manner of items like modern handbags are?
Oct 27, 2012
12:08 pm
Carol, I’ve always wondered that, too– especially since those dresses were not constructed to have pockets!
They always look so small, those little drawstring bags. When you think of it, they didn’t have to carry around most of the things that we do: keys, phone, etc. I’m guessing there would be a handkerchief, possibly some coins, maybe a vinaigrette.
Oct 27, 2012
9:11 am
My first thought is Ben Franklin, actually. Because of his gout, he was often in sedan chairs and then got to his destination.
I live in an area, where we have extremely weathly people and poor people alike, so I would not be shocked in the least to see someone go by with one of these. What does surprise me is that there is no seat in it. I always thought they were used because the person wanted to sit down while they went from one place to another.
From a practical side, I think it is an invaluable thing to have for people. Think of not getting your dress messed up. I think it would be too cool to have some hot guys carry me to and fro while I am inside, but may my chair have a seat?
Oct 27, 2012
12:11 pm
I just had an image of those poor bearers trying to hoist Ben Franklin…. I imagine there was a certain amount of eye-rolling behind his back.
Oct 27, 2012
12:12 pm
p.s. I think there would have initially been a seat in there, but it was removed sometime in the last century or so when the chair was repurposed for use as (if I understand correctly) a dressing room. Which is kind of fascinating in and of itself….
Oct 27, 2012
11:33 am
Interesting post, Lauren. The streets of Venice weren’t the cleanest but still, I hate the thought of being in one of these and having it tip over. Yikes.
Happy Saturday!
Oct 27, 2012
12:10 pm
The tippiness bothered me, too, especially when you look at where those poles are set! It must have been pretty wobbly.
Oct 27, 2012
12:19 pm
Absolutely, Amy…I don’t like the idea of turning my transport over to others so…overtly. Also, don’t ever cross your footmen…or you’re going right into a canal.
Oct 27, 2012
1:24 pm
Thank you for your post, Lauren. This photo of a sedan chair makes me think of the poor menservants who had to lug that thing around. It must have required four brawny guys, more if their passenger was hefty. An onerous job even by the standards of the time.
These porters had to haul the chair for long distances over difficult urban terrain. They had to meet the requirements of their demanding passengers. One jolt and they might be out of a job. Or worse.
Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine! We must never take the automobile for granted.
Oct 27, 2012
3:33 pm
So Lauren, I guess I shouldn’t tell you about the awesome antique shop that is right in the heart of the town I live in and easily within walking distance?
lol
That photo is lovely, and I agree with Sarah that this is an excellent reminder to be kind to your footman or else whoops! Also it looks like very cramped quarters, so hopefully the traveler isn’t claustraphobic or prone to motion sickness! I’m not sure I’d ever want to sit/ride in one. It also reminds me of rickshaws which you see in Asia a lot, but sans wheels.