18th Century Sedan Chairs
The sedan chair served as a mode of urban transportation across European cities like London, Bath, and Paris. Carried by two porters using long parallel poles, these enclosed cabins allowed passengers to navigate crowded, muddy streets with privacy and ease.
Additional Resources
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Conserving an eighteenth-century French sedan chair: assessment and treatment
Sedan chairmen in eighteenth-century London (The Journal of Transport History)
Sedan Chairs: An Efficient Mode of Transportation in Georgian London & Bath
A list of the proprietors of licenses for private sedan chairs, at 25th March, 1788
Staats- und Galawagen der Wittelsbacher (Wittelsbach State and Ceremonial Carriages: Coaches, Sledges and Sedan Chairs in the Marstallmuseum Schloss Nymphenburg)
© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
Extant sedan chairs from the 18th century
Met 18.128, a sedan chair made in Naples, 18th century
Musée de la voiture CMV60D, a sedan chair painted with mythological figures, rinceaux, and cockle-shells, beginning of the 18th century
Versailles T763, sedan chair à décor de marines, c. 1720
Musée de la voiture CMV109, mid-18th century
Elstob & Elstob Feb 20 2021, Lot 707, “A mid 18th century English sedan chair, covered in leather, with dome top, glazed sides and hinged door.”
Met 22.211, a carved and gilded sedan chair, Italian, c. 1750-1760
Musée de la voiture CMV79, a Spanish sedan chair
Musée de la voiture CMV99, model of a sedan chair, 1760
RCIN 31182, Queen Charlote’s sedan chair, 1763
Musée de la voiture CMV2015.002, sedan chair with floral and fruit decorations
Musée de la voiture CMV2012.006, c. 1770-1780
Versailles T3803, sedan chair with the arms of France and Nevarre encircled by the collar of Saint-Esprit, c. 1780
Musée de la voiture CMV75 and CMV72, mule-driven sedan chairs
Late 18th century sedan chair at Eaton Hall
Musée de la voiture CMV80, a sedan chair painted with flower-baskets, urns, and doves, end of the 18th century
RCIN 31181, sedan chair with Queen Charlotte’s monogram and coat of arms, c. 1790-1799
Versailles T761C, sedan chair of the Maison du Roi, end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century
RCIN 28118, Scottish sedan chair used by Baroness Nairne during her residency at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, c. 1800-1820
18th century depictions & descriptions of sedan chairs
Diverses petites figures des cris de Paris: Beggar addressing a woman about to get on a sedan-chair, c. 1695-1740
Designs for the front and back of a sedan chair, French, c. 1700
Detail from a view of the Palace of Versailles on the courtyard of la Chapelle at the beginning of the 18th century, c. 1725
A Rake’s Progress: Arrested for Debt by William Hogarth, 1732-1735
Jack in an Office, or Peter Necessary with Choice of Chamber pots
Two men lifting a seated elderly figure from a sedan chair, c. 1732-1745
The Mall, c. 1740-1750
A sheet of figure studies by Paul Sandby
Perspective view of Privy-Garden, 1741
Detail from a view of the Orangerie and the Palace of Versailles from the Pièce d’Eau des Suisses by Jacques André Portail, 1741
A Perspective View of ye Great Canal in St James’s Park, 1741
Portrait of an unknown woman, c. 1745
Gaillardise du Commun Jardin: The Cov.t Garden Morning Frolick, 1747
“In the year 1750, there was a ſtand of hackney-coaches in St Ann’s ſquare [in Manchester]; but theſe vehicles being found leſs convenient for ſome purposes than ſedan chairs, the latter took place of them, and few country towns have been better ſupplied with them. Some perſons who had quitted trade began to indulge in the luxury of a chaiſe of their own to take an airing; but it was not till 1758 that any perſon actually in buſineſs ſet up a carriage.” (A description of the Country …/Lancashire Worthies)
St James’s Palace and Pall Mall, c. 1750s
An east prospect of Westminster Abby, 1752
The Lord Mayor’s Mansion House, 1753
Odd Man Odd Man, 1757
Oddities, 1757
An officer standing on a pavement, c. 1763-1775
Hawes & Laughton advertised “Sedan Chairs in the neweſt faſhion” in The South-Carolina Gazette; and Country Journal, March 18, 1766
The Present Age, 1767 by Louis-Philippe Boitard
The Female Orators, 1768
Sir Fopling Arrested, Drawn from a late real Scene, 1769?
Scene in a London Street by John Collet, 1770
The Piazza, Covent Garden, by Paul Sandby or Thomas Sandby, 1770
The Piazza, Covent Garden by Paul Sandby
Sedan chair, s.n. Sellier-carrossier, the Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alambert, 1771
The Ladies Ridicule by Matthew Darly, 1772
Two Bloods of Humour, returning from the Bagnio, after having kept it up, 1772
Is this my Daughter Ann, 1774
Part of Somerset House in the Strand, 1775
Joseph Basnett in sedan chair 1777
Monument du Costume Physique et Moral de la fin du Dix-huitième siècle: Les Précautions, 1777
The Ladies Contrivance, or the Capital Conceit by Matthias Darly, 1777
Gateway of Montagu House by Michael Angelo Rooker, 1778
Return from the grand tour, 1778
The new rooms at Bath and The north parade at Bath, 1779
May Day, 1780
Gallery and gardens of the Palais-Royal
An English Sloop engaging a Dutch Man of War, 1781
Old Palace Yard from Margaret Street, 1782
Return from a Masquerade — A Morning Scene, 1784
A Scotch Breeze, scene New Bridge Edinburgh by Isaac Cruikshank, 1784
Letters from Edinburgh (1774-1775) also describes this problem: “As this town is ſituated on the borders of the ſea, and ſurrounded by hills of an immenſe height, the currents of air are carried down between them with a rapidity and a violence which nothing can reſiſt. It has frequently been known, taht in the new town at Edinburgh three or four people have ſcarce been able to ſhut th edoor of the houſe; and it is a very common accident to hear of ſedan chairs being overturned. It ſeems almoſt a neceſſary compliment here, to wait upon a lady the next morning, to hope ſhe got ſafe home. In many viſits which I have made ſince I came here, two peopel have been obliged to go on each ſide of the chair, to keep it even while other two have carried it; and ſometimes even this precaution has not been ſufficient.”
An Edinburgh Sedan Chair with Two Porters by David Allan, c. 1785
Kelham Whitelamb, aged 22, 1787
The Social Pinch by John Kay, 1789
A crowd outside a print-shop by J. Elwood, 1790
Picturesque etchings and other rural studiesfrom a set of Thomas Rowlandson’s etchings, 1790
Detail from the façade of the Louvre with a view of Rue Fromenteau by Philibert-Louis Debucourt
Poll Primrose, a Parody on Tom-Takle, 1795
A Modern Belle going to the Rooms at Bath by James Gillray, 1796
Pride and exaltation in a sedan chair, 1797
Comforts of Bath by Thomas Rowlandson, 1798
Paddy Whack’s First Ride in a Sedan, 1800
Five in the morning, 1800
Grotesque borders for rooms & halls by Thomas Rowlandson, 1800
The King’s Harms, Manchester, c. 1800
In the background of Cries of Edinburgh: Haddock, 1803