Antique Chaise
A long upholstered seat on a polished show-wood frame, made for reclining full length in a Victorian drawing room rather than for sleeping.
Antique Chaise
The form came out of France in the 17th and 18th centuries and was taken up in British drawing rooms from the Regency onward. By the middle of the 19th century it was close to a standard item of the parlour suite, made as reception-room furniture rather than as a bed.
What comes to market on Sellingantiques is overwhelmingly 19th-century and British. Mahogany leads with 141 titles, walnut follows with 93 and rosewood with 66, and those three timbers cover most of the category. Oak, beech, satinwood and pitch pine surface once or twice apiece.
The commonest single thing you will meet is a plain Victorian chaise longue in one of those timbers, single-ended, with a carved or moulded show frame and a turned foot on a brass castor. The word "victorian" runs through 246 titles. Regency and William IV pieces are the next block, about one in seven, and bring scroll ends, brass inlay and simulated rosewood. Double-ended examples that read as small sofas account for roughly one in eight, and French pieces for about one in twenty.
Dealers cannot agree on what to call it. 361 titles say "longue" and 122 say "lounge", with no difference in what is offered, and the same piece may be listed as a sofa, settee, couch or day bed. Dating is just as loose: only 195 of 564 listings carry a clean year, and the broad labels Victorian and 19th Century do most of the work. Where a decade is given, the 1860s peaks with 57 listings.
What Sets Them Apart
Timber and the work done to it sets the range. Rosewood and figured walnut with carving sit in the upper half of the sample; plain mahogany, oak, beech and pitch pine frames sit at the bottom. "Carved" appears in 39 titles and "victorian carved" in 22, and both cluster well above the middle.
Decoration beyond the timber pushes harder still. Brass appears in 12 titles and "inlaid" in 14, and brass-inlaid Regency rosewood reaches the top of the range, as do giltwood, ormolu-mounted and parcel-gilt pieces. A stamp or a firm attribution lifts a chaise well above an anonymous one, while "in the style of" and "manner of" mark the looser end of that wording.
Period and scale do the rest. Regency and William IV examples sit above generic late Victorian ones, and the thirteen titles reading "late victorian" appear at the bottom. Pairs are almost non-existent, with only three listings in the sample offering two, and all sit near the top; large "country house" examples do the same. Small and miniature models sit low, though "small proportions" also gets used as a selling point.
Antique Chaise Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for chaise, 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.
The most expensive chaise ever sold on Sellingantiques was a Regency rosewood and brass inlaid chaise longue, in January 2020.
The Antique Chaise Glossary
- Show frame
- The polished timber left visible around the upholstery. Titles use it directly, as in "show frame chaise longue" and "show wood scroll back".
- Single-ended
- One raised end to recline against, which is the standard Victorian arrangement. Double-ended means a raised end at both sides, so the piece reads as a small sofa; 22 titles carry "double".
- Spoon back
- A shaped, hollowed back rail. It turns up as "spoon back", "double spoonback" and "shaped back", and pairs often with the double-ended form.
- Scroll end
- The end rolled outward in a scroll, in 18 titles, and characteristic of the Regency and William IV pieces. "Scroll arm" is used for the same thing.
- Simulated rosewood
- A cheaper timber grained to imitate rosewood, named in several Regency titles and also written as faux rosewood.
- Récamier, meridienne, gondola
- Named French forms that surface occasionally, each in only one or two titles. Duchesse, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Empire and Napoleon III appear the same way.
Antique Chaise: Frequently Asked Questions
Is a chaise longue the same as a chaise lounge?
Yes. The two spellings cover the same object, and dealers split between them: 361 titles say "longue" and 122 say "lounge".
There is no difference in what is offered under either. Searching one spelling alone will miss a good share of the category.
Why do some listings call it a sofa or day bed?
The naming shades across neighbouring forms. "Sofa" appears in 83 titles, "settee" in 39, "day bed" in 23 and "couch" in 21, often on the same piece.
Day bed tends to get used where the piece is long and low or has a raised end at both sides. Double-ended examples are the ones most likely to be described as a small sofa.
What period are most of them?
The evidence is heavily 19th-century. "Victorian" appears in 246 titles, and in the dealers' dating field Victorian at 149 and "19th Century" at 125 together outnumber every decade bucket.
Regency is the main pre-Victorian block with 62 entries, and Edwardian and 1900s pieces form a small tail. Where a decade is named, the 1860s dominates with 57 listings, more than the 1850s and 1870s combined.
Which timbers turn up most often?
Mahogany, walnut and rosewood cover most of the category, with 141, 93 and 66 titles. A plain Victorian example in mahogany or walnut is the commonest thing on offer.
Everything else is a curiosity. Oak, beech, satinwood, pitch pine and solid Rio rosewood each surface only once or twice.
How many come up for sale each year?
Around 57 chaises come to market on Sellingantiques in a year.
They are spread across 136 different dealers, so no single dealer defines what the category looks like.
Do unusual shapes ever appear?
They do, but singly rather than in runs. The archive holds a bath tub chaise, a kidney-shaped one, an iron-back example, a bentwood one and a hybrid settle-and-chaise.
Also recorded: a miniature ebonised model, an adjustable reclining day bed, and three separate examples with concealed storage. Continental and colonial one-offs are the rarest origins, against 27 French and 29 explicitly English titles.