Boudoirs and Harems: The Seductive Power of Sophas

Abstract

This paper investigates the cultural influences between the East and the West (a contested set of geographic terms) through the boudoir and its furniture. The staple ingredient of the Rococo period (1723–1774), the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, produced spaces and furniture with an unprecedented attention to bodily comfort. In addition to Eastern–inspired furniture pieces, such as the sopha, divan, lit à la Turque (Turkish bed), lit de repos à la Turque (Turkish bed of rest), canapé à la Turque (Turkish couch), veilleuse à la Turque (Turkish sofa), veilleuse à la Ottomanne (Ottoman sofa), and ottomanne (ottoman) to be used in a chamber à la Turque (Turkish room) or elsewhere, there was one space every modern eighteenth–century upper–class woman needed: the boudoir. The boudoir was an exclusive space for females, informed by the late eighteenth– and nineteenth–century Western fascination with Orientalism. In spite of its so–called cultural superiority, the West at times turned to the East and found fertile ground for working out questions of gender identity and power. Encapsulating the experience of colonialism, the boudoir became the site for the repression and reconciliation of gender roles and biases. Furthermore, the eighteenth–century boudoir was a space where the modernization of interior space was underway due to the level of informality, personal privacy, and bodily comfort it afforded to its users.