The Victorian Era

What Is a Victorian Chesterfield Sofa?

Article · Architecture & Design · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The Chesterfield sofa is one of the most iconic pieces of furniture of the Victorian period, and it remains one of the most popular pieces of furniture in the world. It is recognisable by its deep buttoned leather upholstery, its low seat, its rolled arms, its nailhead trim, and its tufted back, and it has been reproduced, copied, adapted, and updated countless times. The history of the Chesterfield is examined in Victorian Furniture and Decorative Arts, and the broader context is set out in Victorian Architecture and Interior Design.

The Origins of the Chesterfield

The Chesterfield sofa takes its name from the Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773), the English statesman and man of letters, who is said to have commissioned the first sofa of this kind. The Earl of Chesterfield was a patron of the arts, a friend of many of the great writers of the period, and the author of Letters to His Son (1774), one of the most widely read works of the eighteenth century, which set out the principles of gentlemanly conduct that the Chesterfield sofa was designed to embody.

The original Chesterfield was a small, low, deep, buttoned, leather, rolled-arm, tufted-back, nailhead-trim chair or sofa, designed to allow the gentleman to sit upright without creasing his suit, and to be placed in the library, the study, the smoking room, the billiard room, or the gentleman’s private room. The deep buttoning allowed the leather to be drawn tightly over the seat and back, producing the characteristic quilted, tufted surface; the rolled arms, set at the same height as the back, gave the sofa its distinctive silhouette; and the nailhead trim, generally of brass or of nickel, secured the leather to the frame and added a decorative accent.

The Victorian Chesterfield

The Victorian Chesterfield sofa was a development of the original eighteenth-century type, larger, deeper, more comfortable, and more elaborate than the early version. The Victorian Chesterfield was generally made of a hardwood frame — mahogany, walnut, beech, or oak — covered in a deep layer of horsehair, wool, or cotton stuffing, and upholstered in leather, generally in a dark colour such as oxblood, burgundy, bottle green, dark brown, or black. The buttoning was generally deeper, the leather was generally heavier, the nailhead trim was generally more conspicuous, and the overall silhouette was generally more substantial than the eighteenth-century type.

The Victorian Chesterfield was made in a range of sizes: the small library chair, the two-seater sofa, the three-seater sofa, and the four-seater sofa, the last generally found only in the largest libraries, smoking rooms, and gentlemen’s clubs. The most common form was the two-seater, which suited the library or the smoking room of a middle-class house; the three-seater and the four-seater were more common in clubs, hotels, and the great country houses. The Chesterfield was the standard club chair of the period, and it was the standard piece of furniture of the smoking room, the billiard room, and the gentleman’s library.

The Making of a Chesterfield

A Chesterfield sofa is built around a hardwood frame, generally of beech, with the seat, the back, and the arms supported by a system of springs, generally of the hand-tied coil or the sinuous type. The frame is covered with a layer of hessian, then with a layer of horsehair, wool, or cotton stuffing, then with a layer of wadding, and finally with the leather, which is drawn tightly over the surface and secured to the frame with brass or nickel nailheads. The deep buttoning is produced by drawing the leather down to the frame at regular intervals with a tufting needle and securing it with a button, generally of leather, of bone, or of mother-of-pearl.

The leather of the Victorian Chesterfield was generally a vegetable-tanned cowhide, dyed in the piece and finished with a coat of aniline or pigment. The better-quality Chesterfields were made with a thicker leather, a deeper buttoning, and a more substantial frame than the cheaper models, and they were generally more comfortable and more durable. The most famous makers of the period included Howard & Sons of Berners Street, London, who supplied many of the great clubs and country houses, and the firm of Waring & Gillow, whose Chesterfields remain in production today.

The Chesterfield in the House

The Chesterfield sofa was the principal piece of the library, the study, the smoking room, and the billiard room of the Victorian house, and it was the principal piece of the club, the hotel, the bank, and the office of the period. The most famous Chesterfield rooms of the period were the library of the Athenaeum Club in London, the smoking room of the Reform Club, the library of the Garrick Club, and the smoking room of the Carlton Club, all of which were furnished with Howard & Sons Chesterfields and remain largely in their original state. The Chesterfield was also a frequent piece in the doctor’s surgery, the dentist’s waiting room, the bar of the country inn, the reading room of the public library, and the boardroom of the merchant bank.

The Chesterfield was not, as a rule, a piece of the drawing room, the dining room, or the bedroom, which were generally furnished with the lighter, more delicate, more feminine pieces of the period. The Chesterfield was a masculine piece, a piece of the gentleman’s rooms, and it was generally combined with the leather-topped writing table, the revolving bookcase, the brass fender, the coal scuttle, the pipe rack, the cigar box, the ashtray, the spittoon, the standard lamp, and the green-shaded reading lamp. The history of the interior is examined in Victorian Interior Design.

The Chesterfield Today

The Chesterfield sofa is one of the most familiar pieces of furniture in the world, and it has been reproduced, copied, and adapted in countless versions. The original Victorian Chesterfield, with its deep buttoning, its heavy leather, and its substantial frame, is still made by a small number of British firms, and it remains the standard reference for the type. The modern Chesterfield, made in leather or in fabric, in a wide range of colours, in many sizes and many configurations, is the most popular version of the sofa in the world, and it is to be found in clubs, hotels, libraries, offices, and private houses on every continent.

The Chesterfield has also entered popular culture, as a symbol of the gentleman’s club, of the Victorian interior, of the law office, of the bar, of the country house, of the smoking room, of the doctor’s surgery, and of the academic study. It has appeared in countless films, television programmes, plays, novels, advertisements, posters, paintings, and photographs, and it has become one of the recognised visual symbols of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The history of the furniture of the period is examined in Victorian Furniture and Decorative Arts, and the broader context is set out in The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.