But sofa-level leisure and comfort hasn’t been available to everyone for all that long. Back in Lord Chesterfield’s day, there wasn’t a lot of lounging time for anyone but the very uppermost crust. The Louises of France leaned into daybeds and canapés with a flourish, but they did not bring their subjects along for the ride, and we all know how that turned out. And those fainting couches of the Victorian era? It’s not likely that fainting scullery maids had quite such a soft place to land as their mistresses did (nor were their corsets quite so restrictive of normal breathing - it’d be hard to get down to scrub a floor encased in whalebone).

But when the 20th century ushered in the modern era, along with a middle class ready to assert their right to a weekend and good design, the sofa was standing ready to democratize relaxation. The sofas of the Modernist period were the brainchildren of designers who harnessed manufacturing efficiencies to bring an aesthetic revolution to the masses. These couches had big style, big ideals, and bigger cushions. They took the sculptural aspects of their carved wood predecessors and rendered them on a large, upholstered scale.