The Victorian Era

What Is a Victorian Parlor?

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

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The Victorian parlor, also known as the drawing room or the sitting room, was the principal reception room in a middle-class Victorian house, and it was the room in which the family received guests, took afternoon tea, performed music, played games, read books, wrote letters, did needlework, and generally spent the late afternoon and evening. The parlor was the most elaborately decorated room in the house, and it was the room that best expressed the taste, the wealth, the status, the education, the cultivation, and the respectability of the family. The history of the parlor is examined in Victorian Interior Design, and the broader context is set out in Victorian Architecture and Interior Design.

The Origins of the Parlor

The parlor had its origins in the medieval great chamber, the principal reception room of the medieval house, in which the lord of the manor received his guests, took his meals, and conducted his business. Through the Tudor and Stuart periods the great chamber evolved into the withdrawing room — the room to which the company withdrew after the meal in the great hall — and through the Georgian period into the drawing room, the parlor, the sitting room, and the lounge, the terms being used in slightly different ways in different houses and in different parts of the country. The Georgian parlor, with its carefully proportioned walls, its tall sash windows, its marble fireplace, and its restrained but rich decoration, set the pattern for the Victorian parlor of the 1830s and 1840s, which then went its own way in the heavier, more elaborate, and more richly furnished manner of the mid-century.

The word parlor itself came from the French parler, to speak, and it originally denoted the room in a monastery in which the monks were permitted to talk, in contrast to the refectory (in which they ate in silence) and the dormitory (in which they slept in silence). The word entered English in the thirteenth century, and by the sixteenth it was the standard term for the principal reception room of a middle-class or upper-middle-class house. The Victorian parlor retained this double sense of the formal and the conversational: it was the room in which the family was on its best behaviour, and the room in which the family was at its most at home.

The Function of the Parlor

The parlor was the principal reception room of the Victorian middle-class house, and it was the room in which the family entertained its visitors. The afternoon visit, the formal call, the morning call, the evening call, the musical evening, the whist drive, the at-home, the small dinner, the tea party, the children’s party, the wedding reception, and the funeral reception all took place in the parlor, and the room was generally arranged to accommodate a range of activities without major reordering. The Victorian middle-class family was a sociable one, and the parlor was the principal setting for that sociability.

The parlor was the room in which the family demonstrated its taste, its wealth, its status, its education, its cultivation, and its respectability. It was the room that the family was most proud of, and the room that the family showed off to its visitors. The furniture was generally the best the family could afford, the decoration was generally the most carefully considered, and the arrangement was generally the most considered of any room in the house. The parlor was the family’s public face, and it was carefully staged.

The Furniture of the Parlor

The parlor was the most elaborately furnished room in the house, and the principal pieces were the sofa, the settee, the chaise longue, the armchair, the occasional chair, the ottoman, the piano, the cabinet, the occasional table, the side table, the whatnot, the card table, the tea table, the work table, the writing table, the bookcase, the display cabinet, the fire screen, the standard lamp, the table lamp, and the piano stool. The sofa, generally the principal piece, was generally placed at the centre of the room, against the wall, with a card table or a tea table in front of it, and the armchairs and the occasional chairs arranged around the walls. The piano, generally an upright or a small grand, was generally placed against the wall opposite the fireplace.

The upholstered seating of the parlor was generally the most comfortable in the house, in the mid-Victorian manner. The deep-buttoned, deep-tufted armchair and sofa, generally upholstered in rep, in velvet, in damask, or in Morris chintz, were the standard seating, and they were generally arranged to allow conversation in small groups. The balloon-back chair, the small, light chair with its balloon-shaped back and its cabriole legs, was the standard occasional chair, and it was generally placed at the tea table, the card table, or the writing table. The history of the most iconic piece of Victorian seating is examined in What is a Victorian Chesterfield sofa?.

The Decoration of the Parlor

The decoration of the parlor was the most carefully considered in the house. The walls were generally covered in wallpaper, generally with a substantial pattern in the early and mid-Victorian manner and with a flatter, paler pattern in the late Victorian manner. The dado was generally of a different colour or of a different pattern from the wall above, and the ceiling was generally a pale colour with a moulded cornice. The fireplace was the principal feature of the room, generally a marble or wood surround with a cast-iron insert, an overmantel, a mantelpiece, and a tiled hearth. The window was generally dressed with layers of fabric: outer curtains of rep or velvet, inner curtains of lace or muslin, a pelmet, a valance, swags, tassels, and fringes.

The principal decorative objects of the parlor were the ornaments on the mantelpiece, on the whatnot, in the cabinet, and on the side table: the clock, the vases, the figurines, the framed photographs, the framed silhouettes, the small oil paintings, the Waterford glass, the Coalport china, the famille-rose vases, the Japanese fans, the blue-and-white china, the Staffordshire figures, the taxidermy birds, the sea shells, the souvenirs of the seaside holiday, the souvenirs of the Grand Tour, and the family Bibles. The principal decorative fabrics of the parlor were the curtains, the carpets, the rugs, the chair covers, the antimacassars, the footstools, the cushions, the piano cover, and the occasional cloths. The history of the wallpapers of the period is examined in How to identify Victorian wallpapers?, and the history of the colour schemes is examined in What defines a Victorian color palette?.

The Parlor in the House

The parlor was generally situated at the front of the house, on the ground floor, often on the first floor in houses with a basement kitchen, and it was generally approached from the hall and the staircase. The parlor was generally one of two or three reception rooms: the parlor at the front of the house, the dining room at the back, and, in the larger houses, the morning room, the library, the study, or the smoking room. The parlor was the principal room, the dining room was the principal eating room, and the morning room was the principal family room. The arrangement of the rooms followed a careful hierarchy, and the parlor was at the top of that hierarchy.

The parlor was the room in which the family’s taste was most visible, and through its decoration the family’s status was most clearly expressed. A well-furnished, well-decorated parlor was a sign of a well-conducted, well-established middle-class household, and it was here that the family received its doctor, its clergyman, its lawyer, its tradesman, and its acquaintance. The parlor was a serious room, and it was treated seriously. The furniture of the period is examined in Victorian Furniture and Decorative Arts, and the broader context of the architecture is set out in Victorian Architecture and Interior Design.