Louis XVI Dining Chairs in White with Cream Seats, Sets of 2

Turned and fluted legs give these Louis XVI Dining Chairs their classic move, a fully upholstered oval back that seems to hover just above the seat rail. Here the frame is painted a clean white, and the oval is set with cream linen, so the whole chair reads as a single pale tone rather than as gilding and color. The medallion shape is the period signature and it is left undecorated.

Each chair is 19.5 inches wide with a seat height of 21 inches, which tucks neatly under aprons of standard depth and seats a full table without anyone crowding a neighbor. The narrow width is what makes six or eight around one table workable. Cream linen keeps the weight down visually, so a long row of them never reads as a wall of upholstery along the sides of the room.

White and cream belong in a dining room that wants the period line without the period formality, so they suit a painted table as readily as a polished one. Against pale plaster the oval backs read as a repeated shape down the length of the table. Two of them will also flank a hall console or sit either side of a bedroom window, where the fluted legs get looked at properly.