Caquetoire
type of low chair with a narrow back and trapezoidal seat
The caquetoire, or conversation chair, was an armchair style which emerged during the European Renaissance in France.
The name caquetoire is derived from caqueter, a French term meaning to chat. The chair was thus named the caquetoire as a reference to women sitting and talking. The term may have been early applied to various forms of seat or bench. In 1556 Henri Estienne wrote that Parisian women called their seats at the bedside of a new mother "caquetoires". Older dictionaries relate the 'caquetoire' to relaxed social situations, "où on caquette à son aise", - a fireside seat where one may chat at ease. There are 16th-century references to tapestry covered benches serving as caquetoires. The term now denotes a particular form of chair.
A recognised feature of a caquetoire chair is a splayed seat and outward curving arms so women wearing their large skirts or farthingales could sit comfortably. Due to fashions of the time and the lack of heating systems in homes, women wore several layers of skirts and petticoats to keep warm.
“Caquetoire” enters the record as type of low chair with a narrow back and trapezoidal seat. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Caquetoire, type and chair can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Caquetoire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.