Origins:
Facts about early slipper chairs are sketchy. In the 18th century, the French labeled what might be considered its prototype a "chauffeuse." From the French verb chauffer, meaning, "to heat up," the word describes this low, armless chair's original function of helping warm someone before the fire. The English antecedent may have been the "low chair" of the 18th-century bedchamber that was also pulled up to the fireplace.

How its "slipper" designation evolved is a mystery. "No one knows where the term came from," says Elaine Whitmire, Sotheby's senior vice president and director of 19th-century furniture in New York. "We can speculate on how the name came to be: Perhaps it was made low so a lady could easily sit on one to don her slippers. Maybe, it 'slipped' easily beside the fireplace, or the conjunction of its long back and seat looked like a slipper."