PAIR OF PLOYANTS EARLY 19th CENTURY Lacquered and gilded wood H. 55 cm, W. 80 cm H. 71 cm with cushion The folders are made up of four branches joined in pairs by an axis or pivot. As their name indicates, they can be folded in two and it is the straps, on which the cushion or "tile" is placed, that maintain its distance. The folding chairs were almost always seats of protocol reserved for the sovereign courts. As the memorialist Saint Simon explained to us, the use of seats at court was entirely linked to respect for the rules of precedence or etiquette. Thus, in the presence of the king or queen, both of whom were seated on an armchair, only the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of France, the princesses of the blood and the foreign duchesses and princesses were allowed to sit, and only on a stool (or pliant). The princes of blood, cardinals, dukes and peers remained standing like all the others. We know several ployants close to the ones we present, most of which were made by François or Nicolas Quinibert Foliot (Fig 1 and 2). Let us also mention the ployant represented on the portrait of Louis XV by Carle Van Loo, dated 1751 and presence of the king or the queen both sitting on a conservatory in Versailles. (Fig. 3).