EYE ON DESIGN | Tuscany | The Chair

I’m obsessed with a chair.

I don’t know how or why it has happened at this particular time, but it has become my mission to find a replica of this chair. I’m not kidding, I HAVE to find it. It’s a neoclassical French Bergère chair, and I have a corner in my living room that’s yearning for it.

If you’re interested:

bergère |berˈ zh er| noun French armchair built for comfort of wide proportions; upholstered back and sides, covered arms, a loose seat cushion and exposed, carved wooden frame. Common during Louis XIV and Louis XV periods. The fanciful name, “shepherdess chair”, was coined in mid-eighteenth century Paris. The original object of my preoccupation is in a cottage I rented on top of a mountain in Tuscany.

Mind you, this fact adds another dimension to my obsession. It’s entirely possible that I am fixated with the style and fabric and overall look of the chair….I really can literally fall in love with the look of something. (This is where I can get nutty: Check out the understated two button tufted back…perfection.) Then again, there’s this whole other significance that the chair has…thinking about it and looking at the photo of it can’t help but conjure up the memory of being tucked up in its velvety softness with a steaming cup of coffee in the morning or a glass of bubbly prosecco in the evening, looking through the open french doors at the enchanting view of the Apuan Alps, silhouetted in the Eastern sky…a sight that could soothe the pains of the world.

So obviously I have issues about that chair that can’t be duplicated…but that hasn’t stopped me from scouring the local antique stores, calling vendors I know, and scrolling through 1stdibs and Ebay. It may be downright impossible to unearth a Bergère that lives up to the chair in my cottage in Coreglia…but I’ll keep searching anyway, because that’s just what I do.

Note: This was the first post written on this blog, way back when…