Canapé (furniture) Frequently matching chairs were made to go with it. Precious hardwoods such as walnut, cherry, and mahogany were often used in its construction. Currently the term is used in world furniture design and retail as a variation on "sofa", except when antiques or reproductions of 18th century designs are concerned. Canapé (furniture) A canapé is a piece of furniture similar to a couch, and is meant to describe an elegant sofa made out of elaborately carved wood with wooden legs, and upholstered seats, back, and armrests that seats three, that emerged from France in the 18th century. A style created
Paris in the 18th century a favorite, of a mistress, of foolish expenditures, and the prodigality of a King, which soon exhausted a bank and… undermined the Kingdom.". The ruined finances of the kingdom, and the dismissal by Louis XVI of his finance minister, the Swiss-born Jacques Necker, led Paris directly into the French Revolution in 1789. During the 18th century, French royal workshops produced jewelry, snuff boxes, watches, porcelain, carpets, silverware, mirrors, tapestries, furniture and other luxury goods not only for the French Court, but also for the Empresses of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and the other courts of Europe. Louis XV oversaw