Antique Daybeds
A long upholstered seat on a polished show-wood frame, made with one raised end, or both, for reclining rather than sitting upright.
Antique Daybeds
The daybed was established in European furniture by the 17th century and became a drawing-room and boudoir staple in the 19th, when the French term chaise longue came into common English use. Double-ended versions, made for reclining either way, and adjustable frames belong to the same domestic tradition.
The likeliest thing you'll meet is a 19th-century English chaise longue in mahogany or rosewood. Mahogany leads the timbers, rosewood follows, and scrolled ends turn up throughout, particularly on Regency and William IV frames. Upholstery is described in broad terms: buttoned, velvet, damask, leather, linen.
Naming in this category is unsettled. Of 143 listings, 64 titles say chaise, 45 say sofa, 11 say settee, and many use two or three of those words at once, so a piece can be a daybed, a chaise longue and a couch in the same line. Searching both spellings, chaise longue and chaise lounge, brings up different stock.
Beyond the English core sit double-ended and scroll-end sofas and settees, a smaller French group taking in bergère, Empire, Louis XVI and duchesse brisée forms, Anglo-Indian, Ceylonese and Chinese caned or carved hardwood daybeds, and a handful of Swedish painted settles and Gustavian settees. Dates run from 1800 to 1930, though 55 listings are placed only as 19th century.
Where The Range Splits
Timber and frame treatment do most of the work. Rio rosewood, ebony and ebonised scroll ends, and carved mahogany sit at the upper reaches; plain walnut chaise longues and later frames sit at the bottom. Simulated rosewood, cheaper timber grained to imitate the real thing, is named openly in a few Regency and George IV titles.
Decoration on the show wood separates one frame from another as much as shape does. Brass inlay on Regency settees, ormolu mounts over inlaid walnut, giltwood, Chinese lacquer and boulle inlay all belong to the top end. A workshop name, appearing as an attribution or a label rather than as a signature, pushes a listing upward too.
Then scale and completeness. Four-seater settees and country-house sofas run high; a bare chaise longue frame, a Victorian daybed offered for re-upholstery, or a miniature example runs low. Period claimed follows the same pattern, with Regency, George IV and William IV above late Victorian and Edwardian.
Antique Daybeds Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for daybeds, 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 largest to pass through Sellingantiques was a Regency four-seater settee, one of a handful of country house pieces where scale is named in the title.
The Antique Daybeds Glossary
- Chaise longue
- A long seat with a back and one raised end for reclining, used in these titles interchangeably with daybed. It appears in 49 of them.
- Chaise lounge
- A spelling variant of the same form, used in 12 titles, and worth searching alongside the French spelling because it brings up different pieces.
- Double-ended
- Both ends raised, so the piece can be reclined on from either side. Titles include Double Ended Settee and Double Ended Daybed.
- Show wood
- The polished frame timber left visible around the upholstery. Mahogany and rosewood dominate it in this category.
- Bergère
- A frame with caned back and sides instead of full stuffing. Three titles use the word, one of them a painted Louis XVI daybed.
- Duchesse brisée
- A French daybed made in two or three separate parts that push together to form one long seat. One example appears in the archive.
Antique Daybeds: Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between a daybed and a chaise longue?
In these listings, very little. Dealers use daybed, chaise longue, sofa, settee and couch for the same kind of long upholstered seat, and often stack two or three of the words into one title.
Strictly, a chaise longue has a back and one raised end. The category term daybed covers single-ended, double-ended and reclining forms alike.
Which timbers were used for the frames?
Mahogany leads, named in 32 of 143 titles, with rosewood in 15. Walnut, oak, birch, teak and ebonised frames all appear in smaller numbers.
Simulated rosewood turns up in a few Regency and George IV titles: cheaper timber grained and stained to imitate the figure of the real wood.
How old are most of these?
The dated field runs from 1800 to 1930, but only 34 listings commit to a clean year. The label 19th Century alone accounts for 55 entries, placing them within a hundred-year span and no closer.
Where decades are given they cluster in the middle and later 19th century. Two Swedish painted settle benches and a Gustavian settee reach back to the 18th century, the earliest in the archive.
Are French daybeds common in this category?
They're a minority. Thirteen titles say French, covering bergère caned sofas, an Empire mahogany sofa, a Louis XVI style carved giltwood daybed, a Napoleon III piecrust chaise and a duchesse brisée.
The French share is smaller among pieces currently for sale than across the archive as a whole.
Do daybeds come up often for sale?
Around 16 come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, and 68 different dealers have listed one. The typical dealer has handled a single example rather than kept a stock of them.
That spread is why titles vary so much in wording from one listing to the next.
What does a listing mean by frame only?
Three listings offer the show-wood frame on its own, or describe the piece explicitly as for re-upholstery. The seat is there; the covering is not.
At the other end, nine titles name the covering and little else: velvet, damask, floral linen, striped silk, green leather.