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Part of the House
Courting furniture was designed to fit in with the
house’s décor or theme, featuring intricate carved
woodwork and elements that reflected the status and
seriousness of the parents with children of courting age.
John H. Belter was a German-born American cabinet
maker working in New York when he created a carved
Rococo Revival rosewood parlor and bedroom suites,
including a tête-a-tête chair that is part of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art’s furniture collection. “A
mid-nineteenth-century French form, the tête-à-tête,
also known as a confident, was well-suited to the parlor
as its two chairs facing in opposite directions and joined
at the sides allowed for discreet conversation. Belter chose
imported rosewood for his parlor and bedroom suites
because of its luxurious qualities: the rich color, fine-patterned
grain, and high polish that could
be attained.” The incredible orna- Salvador Dali
mentation and clever use of designed his own tête-à-tête
sofa in the 1930s when he collaborated
laminates make this one with furniture designer and interior decorator
of the most coveted Jean-Michel Frank. Dali’s tête-à-tête design features human
examples of a elements, the armrest in the middle representing a human arm –
Courting Chair . a male hand with a watch at one end and a female hand with jewelry at the other.

Upholstered Rosewood Courting Bench (above)
This Bench is attributed to H.W. Batley (Gr. Britain, 1846-
1932) during the British Aesthetic Movement, around 1880. According to the University
of Chicago Press Journals, states that while no obituary marked the death of Batley in
1932, he was “highly regarded in his time as an artistic etcher and as a designer of furni-
ture, textiles, carpets, wallpapers, and total schemes of decoration for many of England’s
leading manufacturers.” Batley exhibited his work at the Philadelphia Centennial in
1876, the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1878, and the Chicago World’s Columbian
Exposition in 1893.
Batley’s career was largely overlooked in the 20th
century, and several called him out for copying design Taking on a propeller-like form, the three-way chairs were known as the “indiscreet,” in
elements from the Japanese and grafting them “onto honor of the third person who would be sticking their nose into a private conversation.
the Talbert-Collcut style.” Others felt his style was Napoleon distributed them throughout his ministers' apartments in the Louvre, as if to
“quite pleasing” and said he was a “lesser figures who encourage his advisors and subjects to eavesdrop on each other.
produced art furniture of considerable charm.”

Late 19th century french conversation
seat or “borne settee” that would be
This Old English Hepplewhite seen in the center of the American
Courting Bench, Gilded Age drawing room as the
ca. 1900, is made out of center of communications on the day’s
walnut and sold for news and gossip.
$3,300 on 1stDibs.com This modern-day borne settee is more likely to be seen
in a reception area or hotel lobby than in a home.

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