Antique Fauteuil
A fauteuil is a French open-armed upholstered armchair, made with a show-wood frame and open sides, for sitting in salons and reception rooms where the chair was moved about and seen from all angles.
Antique Fauteuil
The frame shows: carved wood around an upholstered seat, back and often arm pads, with the sides left open rather than filled in. That open side is what separates a fauteuil from its closed-sided cousin, and it is why the chair reads as furniture rather than as a lump of stuffing.
The form took shape in France in the later 17th and 18th centuries. Its variants are named for use rather than for a workshop, so a desk version and a wide easy version carry their own labels. Nineteenth-century workshops then reproduced the 18th-century patterns in quantity, which is why so much of what trades now is a revival of a Louis pattern rather than a chair of that date.
The chair you are most likely to meet on Sellingantiques is a pair of 19th-century French armchairs in walnut or painted wood, in a Louis style. Pairs run to 299 of 469 titles, so the single chair is the exception. Around 44 come up a year, offered by 144 different dealers, so the category sits thinly across the trade rather than with a handful of specialists.
The heading takes in more than France. 'French' appears in 308 titles, and the rest are English, Italian and Dutch open armchairs of the same construction, with Italian showing up a dozen times and Dutch and Piedmontese once or twice. Dating leans hard on the 19th century: 149 listings say only '19th Century' with no decade, against 28 placed in the 18th.
Where The Range Splits
Count the chairs first. Pairs are the working unit of this category, so a single sits below them, and the sets of four and six that surface only occasionally sit above. The largest groupings that have come through, sets of six and a five-piece salon suite, sit at the top of the range, and a set of four Empire mahogany fauteuils belongs in the same bracket.
Then read how the date is worded. Period Empire, Régence, Directoire and 18th-century chairs run high, while 'Louis XV style', 'revival', 'in the manner of' and 'in the taste of' place a chair lower. Both describe the same pattern; only one claims the date. Carving and gilding push in the same direction, with carved giltwood and silver-gilt frames clustering among the highest-priced.
Scale and surface do the rest. Large, oversize and throne-scale chairs sit above bedroom and children's examples, and original surface is treated as a plus throughout: original paint, original crackle paint, traces of original gilt, original needlework. A small archive group came with full reupholstery included in the sale, though none of the live stock is offered that way.
Antique Fauteuil Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for fauteuil, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
19th Century is the period label used most on Sellingantiques for fauteuils, with the 1900s next and the 1920s third.
The Antique Fauteuil Glossary
- Pair
- Two matching chairs sold together, and the commonest unit in this category at 299 titles. 'Near pair' and 'matched pair' signal two chairs brought together rather than made as one.
- Open armchair
- The English term used interchangeably with fauteuil in titles, with 'open' in 65 and 'open armchairs' in 28. It means the sides between arm and seat are left clear.
- Louis XV / Louis XVI style
- The two pattern names most often cited, cabriole-legged and straight-legged respectively. 'Louis' appears in 85 titles, 'XVI' in 32.
- Giltwood
- A carved frame water- or oil-gilded, in 43 titles, with 'gilt' in another 38. Parcel gilt means partly gilded, usually gilt highlights over paint.
- Salon chair
- A drawing-room seat chair, 'salon' in 24 titles and often paired with 'armchairs'. It describes the room the chair was made for.
- Fauteuil de bureau
- The desk version, sometimes revolving. It turns up a handful of times, alongside worked covers described as needlepoint, petit point or tapestry.
Antique Fauteuil: Frequently Asked Questions
Are fauteuils usually sold as pairs?
Yes. Of 469 titles, 299 say 'pair', which makes the single chair the exception rather than the norm.
Sets of four and six turn up only a handful of times, and when they do they sit at the top of the range. A five-piece salon suite is about the largest grouping recorded.
How old are most of these chairs?
The dated field runs 1750 to 1940, with 228 listings carrying a clean year. The 19th century supplies 149 of them.
Where decades are given they cluster from the 1860s to the 1930s, the 1900s and 1920s heaviest among them. Only 28 listings are dated to the 18th century.
Do all fauteuils come from France?
No. French appears in 308 titles, so the majority, but the heading also carries English, Italian and Dutch open armchairs of the same construction.
Italian shows up a dozen times and Victorian a dozen more. Dutch, Piedmontese, Barocchetto and French colonial each surface once or twice.
What does Louis XVI style mean on a listing?
It describes the pattern, not the date. Louis XVI chairs have straight, often fluted legs; Louis XV chairs have cabriole legs.
Nineteenth-century workshops reproduced both patterns in quantity, so 'style', 'revival' and 'in the manner of' mark a chair as a later version of an earlier design.
Which timbers and finishes turn up most?
Walnut leads at 89 titles, with carved walnut and French walnut recurring inside that group. Painted frames account for 58.
Giltwood appears in 43 titles and mahogany in 28, the mahogany often tied to Empire, Restauration and Charles X forms.
What unusual fauteuils have come up?
A revolving fauteuil de bureau, a reclining mahogany and leather chair, and a children's pair each appear once.
Restauration giltwood fauteuils said to come from the Palais des Tuileries sit at the very top of the range.