Modern Settees

Ideas for decorating and furnishing with modern settees.

After divans we come to modern settees. There has been great progress since the round settees of mid-Victorian times, when people sat back to back on a circular upholstered seat, rather like those seats that are still to be seen sometimes on greens and commons, built round the trunk of some sheltering tree. Apparently these roundabout affairs found admirers, because numbers of them were made and distributed among the homes of the country, which were then suffering from the presence of such articles as whatnots and chiffoniers, and all varieties of squiggley and bulbous caricatures of chairs and tables. But now we have left all that far behind : the valley of the shadow of Victorian furnishing will soon become a remote memory, and we shall carry on the tradition formed before the dark age of furniture and decoration robbed rooms, houses, and the everyday commonplace things that surround us of character and beauty.

The modern settee though deeply-sprung is not squat or ill-proportioned : its contribution to decoration and arrangement is through the medium of colour, and its cover conveys its character. Its form does not suggest abandoned wallowing in comfort, for its lines are in many instances developed from Hepplewhite and Sheraton models. Like the modern easy chair it should have a loose cover, and need not therefore be upholstered in anything more costly than a good, strong lining.

Next: History of Tables.