Chamber Woman

A Chamber Woman (Danish: Kammerfrue; German: Kammerfrau; Swedish: kammarfru) was a court office in several European courts.

The Chamber Woman was in charge of the wardrobe, cosmetics and other matters concerning the domestic management of the personal chambers of a royal woman. She had about the equivalent task in the household of a royal woman as a personal Lady's maid, and assisted with dressing, undressing and bathing the royal woman. She supervised the chambermaids and the domestic concerns of the court of a royal woman, which was then performed by the servants. She was in rank between the ladies-in-waiting of the nobility and the domestic servants. In Sweden, the kammarfru was normally a woman not from the nobility, but from the wealthy burgher class.

Notable examples

• Ingrid Maria Wenner
• Anna Sofia Ramström

See also

• Woman of the Bedchamber, British equivalent
• Première femme de Chambre, French equivalent

References

• Klaus Kjølsen: Det Kongelige Danske Hof 1660-2000: en forvaltningshistorisk oversigt, 2010
• Fabian Persson (1999). Servants of Fortune. The Swedish court between 1598 and 1721. Lund: Wallin & Dalholm. ISBN 91-628-3340-5
• Rundquist, Angela, Blått blod och liljevita händer: en etnologisk studie av aristokratiska kvinnor 1850-1900, Carlsson, Diss. Stockholm : Univ.,Stockholm, 1989
• Hellsing, My (2013). Hovpolitik : Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte som politisk aktör vid det gustavianska hovet. Örebro: Örebro universitet. Sid. 61. ISBN 978-91-7668-964-6