Antique Foot Stools
A low upholstered stool made to rest the feet on, framed in timber and topped with fabric, needlework or leather.
Antique Foot Stools
Most often a small box on short turned, cabriole or bun feet, square, circular, oval or domed on top, and covered in fabric, worked canvas or leather. Walnut and mahogany run almost level as the frame timbers, with rosewood a clear third and oak behind that. Victorian appears in about a third of titles on Sellingantiques.
The single Victorian walnut or mahogany stool is the bulk of the category, and many are described in no more detail than that. Pairs are the other thing you'll meet often: a large minority of titles offer two matching stools together, and a few go further to sets of library stools.
Low stools for the feet are old, but the upholstered parlour version belongs to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when fireside and drawing-room seating called for a padded platform. Purpose-made forms came with it: gout stools, carriage and coaching rests, and long fender stools set before a hearth. Around a dozen titles name a gout stool.
The dated field runs 1750 to 1930, though the largest single label is the vague "19th Century", so a great many pieces are pinned only to a hundred-year span. Twentieth-century entries are substantial too. At the edges of the heading sit long bench, hearth and window-seat stools, and taller piano, duet and dressing stools, sold here because the line between a low seat and a foot rest was never policed.
Where The Range Widens
Timber sets the floor. Plain oak and beech sit low; walnut and mahogany are the standard middle; rosewood, burr walnut, satin-birch, ebony and giltwood cluster in the upper part. Gilt and parcel-gilt pieces sit at the very top, and "simulated rosewood" turns up in titles, so a named wood in a heading isn't always solid.
Carving does the rest of the lifting. About one title in eight says carved, and carved walnut is a named combination in its own right; scroll-ended, heraldic, sarcophagus and curule examples recur among the highest-priced titles sampled. Scale works the same way, with 5ft and 6ft buttoned stools, centre stools and window seats sitting well above the small round ones.
Then the top. Titles that specify original upholstery, needlepoint, petit point tapestry, beadwork, kilim, crewel or deep-buttoned leather run through the middle and upper range, while an undescribed top tends to sit at the bottom. A matched pair lifts a stool above its single equivalent, and the invalid and travel forms carry some of the strongest figures in the category.
Antique Foot Stools Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for foot stools, 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 oldest to pass through Sellingantiques is an oak long stool of about 1580. Most dated foot stools fall between 1750 and 1930.
The Antique Foot Stools Glossary
- Foot stool / footstool
- Both spellings run through the titles for the same object, one word or two, with no difference in what's being sold.
- Pair
- Two matching stools offered together, and a common way this form comes to market rather than an occasional bonus.
- Deep buttoned
- Upholstery pulled down into a pattern of buttons, used of leather tops in several titles and of the long ticking-covered stools.
- Gout stool
- A foot rest, often adjustable or angled, made to support a painful leg. It sits at the head of a wider group of invalid and travel forms.
- Fender stool
- A long stool set before a hearth, appearing in titles alongside "hearth" and "long", and the reason some entries stretch to five or six feet.
- X-frame / curule
- A crossed-leg frame. Several titles use x-frame, and one names a curule stool.
Antique Foot Stools: Frequently Asked Questions
What wood are foot stools usually made from?
Walnut and mahogany are almost exactly level as the frame timbers across the archive, with rosewood a clear third and oak behind it.
Burr walnut, satin-birch, ebony and giltwood turn up in smaller numbers, generally toward the upper part of the range. "Simulated rosewood" also appears in titles, so a wood named in a heading isn't always the solid timber.
Why are so many sold in pairs?
A large minority of titles on Sellingantiques offer a matched pair, which is a high share for a small furniture form. A few entries go further, to sets of two library stools.
Paired examples appear across the upper half of the sampled range.
How old are most of these?
The dated field runs from 1750 to 1930, and Victorian appears in around a third of all titles.
The largest single vague label is "19th Century", so a great many are dated only to a hundred-year span. Regency accounts for a smaller group, and the 1860s, 1870s, 1880s and 1890s buckets are Victorian anyway.
Twentieth-century entries are substantial, with the 1920s, 1900s and 1930s all well represented, so a fair share of what's offered is Edwardian or later.
Do piano and dressing stools count as foot stools?
Around twenty titles between them are listed under this heading, along with a couple of duet stools made for two players.
They are taller than a foot rest, and they sit at the fringe of the category rather than at its centre. The line between a low seat and something to rest the feet on isn't policed.
What is a gout stool for?
It's a foot rest, often adjustable or angled, made to support a painful leg. Twelve titles name one.
Gout stools belong to a wider thread of purpose-made forms in this archive: carriage rests, coaching and fireside rests, kneeling rests and a folding travelling stool. These carry some of the highest figures in the range.
Are unusual foot stools ever listed?
They are, though each tends to be a near one-off. The archive holds a velvet bulldog stool of the 1920s, a revolving grotto stool and a turtle foot stool.
Origins beyond Britain and France turn up rarely: Anglo-Indian and Ceylonese carved examples, a Burmese stool, a Chinese one, a Canadian piano stool and a pair of Italian carved walnut stools.