Chippendale furniture

“ By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."
MAHOGANY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR. ABOUT 1740.
(Property of the India Office.)
The collecting of Chippendale furniture has become so fashionable of late years that genuine old pieces are difficult to procure. It is true that two old chairs were discovered in a workhouse last year, but when specimens come into the market they usually bring large prices. Two elbow state-chairs, with openwork backs, were sold a little while ago for seven hundred and eighty guineas, and a set of six small chairs brought ninety-three guineas about the same time. ”

“ Little of this furniture ever came to America. It was made to order for the nobility and gentry, and its immense cost rendered it possible only for the very wealthy. Among the two hundred copper-plate designs given in Chippendale's book, quite a large portion of them are in what is known as "Chinese taste," which had taken the world of fashion by storm. Sir William Chambers, who had travelled in China, is given the credit for having introduced this style into furniture and decoration, which was further adapted by Chippendale and other makers, but it was already known before Chambers's day. ”

“ Since that time these pieces have been in the Alexander Ladd house at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where they now stand. They are a perfect exemplification of Chippendale’s furniture in the Chinese style, and are probably the finest examples of that style in this country. They are of mahogany, with cane seats. The design of the backs is more elaborate than any of the Chinese designs for furniture of either Chippendale, Manwaring, Ince, or Mayhew; an unusual thing, for a majority of the designs in the old cabinet-makers’ books are far more elaborate than the furniture which has come down to us. ”

“ Most of Chippendale's furniture presents certain characteristics that are easily mastered. First may be mentioned the ball-and-claw foot, and the cabriole leg which he adopted from the Dutch, and which he used so freely before he introduced the straight leg. Then the backs of his chairs are quite distinctive, whether the splats run up and down, or become cross-braces, or are elaborated into very ornamental ribbon-work. The top bar is generally extended on each end into what, for a better name, we will call "ears." ”

“ These were the styles in vogue when Chippendale began to design and make furniture for his patrons, whom he desired to see among the most fashionable. While the ladies were so gay, the gentlemen were quite as elegant, with three-cornered hats, wigs and patches, embroidered waistcoats, with stiffened skirts to their coats, knee-breeches, silk stockings, and [Pg 61] snuff-boxes. Such modish people could not bestow themselves comfortably in chairs with arms, so chairs without arms, and tabourets, as they were called, were quite necessary for comfort. ”

“ He [Pg 128] used tall and slender posts, and carving of the most elaborate nature. Genuine Chippendale beds are rare in America, and they are not common in England, seeming almost as if he had executed this piece of furniture less frequently than any other. We have, however, beautiful specimens which were modeled after Chippendale designs.
In English furniture making, the brothers Adam held the supremacy from 1775 until the end of the century. ”

“ His influence is attested by the fact that almost all mahogany furniture of the last century is nowadays referred by the ignorant to ‘Chippendale.’ Speaking generally of his work, it is at once heavier in style and less severe in ornamentation than the slender and tasteful designs of Heppelwhite and Sheraton a quarter of a century later. Elaborate and delicate, Chippendale’s designs are overwrought, and show nothing of that architectonic feeling without which there can be no true designing of furniture. His work as a whole reflects the culture of his age. ”

“ His designs for mantel clocks were much prettier and in better taste everyway. He used walnut as well as mahogany for the cases, and sometimes Chinese panels, or panels painted with nymphs and goddesses, called in "French taste," were inserted. These decorations served, besides, to ornament the fire-screens which were popular pieces of furniture. He made designs for chimney-pieces or "over-mantels." These were filled in with glass. Chippendale says:
"Chimney-pieces require great care in the execution. ”

“ Chippendale and Sheraton were without doubt the cleverest cabinet-makers of their age; but many an unnamed workman of their period has left us the splendid legacy of his "ideas" in furniture which is scattered over the comfortable homes of England, with no pedigree attached except the imprimatur of a master craftsman's genius.
Speaking of artistic furniture, I do not mean elaborate furniture overladen with a heavy ornament which confuses its lines and perverts its beauty into vulgarity. Simplicity is the fairest form of art. ”

“ In fact catalogues at auctions are little to be relied on, as one will often find pieces heavy with inlay, or of undoubted [Pg 69] American make, boldly marked Chippendale, while Sheraton is made to shoulder the baldest imitations of his style and design. It must always be a matter of regret that furniture-makers so rarely signed their work. If they had realized that individual specimens would bring as much as fine paintings, they would not have left their work clouded with an uncertain pedigree.
Figure 26. CHIPPENDALE CHAIR-BACKS AND MIRROR-FRAME
Chippendale did not make sideboards. ”

“ The fine sense of proportion, at once{273} noticeable in the genuine Chippendale chair, is absent in the modern copy, and, above all, the carving in the latter is thin and poor. In the old days the wastage of wood was not a thing which the master had in his mind. In modern copies the curl of the arm, or the swell at the top of the back, shows a regard for economy. There is a thin, flat look about the result, which ought not to be mistaken. Scrolls and ribbon-work are often added to later pieces made in the style of Chippendale, which have enough wood in their surfaces to bear carving away. ”

“ The cabriole leg became simpler as time passed until in the days of Queen Mary it became the one we all know so well in the Dutch chairs and the early work of Chippendale.
These copies of rare old pieces of furniture are of the best. The choice of wood, the carving, the inlay, all show the highest ideals. The Chinese Chippendale table shows the pagoda effect, and the Hepplewhite desk has the charm of a secret drawer. ”

“ A few examples from Ince and Mayhew's "Cabinet Maker's Real Friend and Companion" are given, from which it is evident that, without any distinguishing brand, or without the identification of any particular piece of furniture with one of their designs, it is difficult to distinguish between their work and that of Chippendale and other contemporary makers. ”

“ It is, however, noticeable, after careful comparison of the work of Chippendale with that of Ince and Mayhew, that the furniture designed and made by the latter has many more of the characteristic details and ornaments which are now generally looked upon as denoting the work of Chippendale; for instance, the fretwork ornaments finished by the carver, and then applied to the plain mahogany; the open-worked scroll shaped backs to encoignures or china shelves; and the carved Chinaman with the pagoda. ”

“ A star is inlaid upon the top, the edge of which has a row of fine inlaying. The base has three fanlike carvings where the legs join the pillar.
The exquisite Chippendale card-table shown in Illustration 253 is not only beautiful in itself, but it frames what is a monument to the industry of the frail young girls who embroidered the top, and to the good housekeeping of its owners for one hundred and twenty odd years. The colors in this embroidery are as brilliant as when new, and never a moth has been suffered to even sniff at its stitches, which are the smallest I have ever seen. ”

“ He published his book of designs in 1764, containing complete sides of rooms, looking-glass frames, chimney fronts, &c. He and his contemporaries designed tables, cabinets and moveable furniture of every description, including carriages, on which, indeed, furniture designers of all periods were employed. Chippendale and his sons or assistants produced frames and cornices for gilding so different from his well-made wardrobes, &c., that there must have been more than one of the family engaged in superintending these dissimilar kinds of objects. He is a representative maker. ”

“ There were, also, "ladder backs," and the Chinese Chippendale chairs, with lattice work open carved and extending over entire backs. The characteristic Chippendale leg is cabriole with claw and ball foot.
The setting for Chippendale furniture was a panelled dado, classic mantelpiece, architraves and frieze, and stretched over sidewalks, above dado, was silk or paper showing a large pattern harmonising with the furniture. The Chinese craze brought about a fashion for Chinese wall papers with Chinese designs. This Chinese fashion continued for fifty years. ”

“ What is sound of the reputation that Chippendale has earned, however, apart from the excellence of his workmanship, lies in the furniture coming under the last head of our division—in pieces wherein we find the decoration applied, a little lavishly it is true, with a certain admixture of straight lines and plain surfaces with which to contrast it. ”

“ In America much of the furniture called Chippendale was not made by Chippendale himself, but was made after his designs and copied from imported pieces by clever cabinet-makers here in the, then, colonies. The average American of the eighteenth century was a simple and not over rich person of good breeding and refined taste who appreciated the fact that the elaborate furniture of England and France would not be in keeping with life in America, and so either imported the simpler kinds, or demanded that the home cabinet-maker choose good models for his work. ”

“ The atmosphere of a Revolutionary house has been created by finishing the rooms with Chippendale furniture, contemporary portraits, and small objects of foreign importation.
The entrance is simply furnished with a Georgian mirror and table. In the large and formal parlour at the right stands a very handsome secretary bookcase originally made in the City. Fitting companions to this piece, a beautifully carved highboy, tripod table and chairs in the Philadelphia Chippendale style, give the room an air of elegance. ”

“ His Chinese backs were distinctly geometrical, and from them he would seem to have derived some of the inspiration for the frets of the glazed book-cases and cabinets which were among his most agreeable work. The most attractive feature of Chippendale’s most artistic chairs—those which, originally derived from Louis Quinze models, were deprived of their rococo extravagances—is the back, which, speaking generally, is the most elegant and pleasing thing that has ever been done in furniture. ”

“ Two very handsome chairs are shown in Figure 22, the side chair showing an abundance of exquisite carving on the knees and in the splat. It is wonderful what variety he encompassed working in the small space and confined shape of this part of a chair. It will be observed that in all the chairs shown no two splats are alike.
Figure 22. CHIPPENDALE CHAIRS.
All the construction of the Chippendale furniture of the last period is remarkably solid and of the first order, and the wood is of a dark and rich mahogany. ”

“ These long side-tables were designed not only by Chippendale, but by the other cabinet-makers and designers of the day, Ince and Mayhew, and Manwaring; but the tables of these less noted men usually are made after the prevailing Chinese style, with applied fretwork and legs which are pierced, thus depriving them of the strength necessary in so large a piece. Chippendale made these also, but in this table the cabinet-maker chose a design which looks and is strong. The carving is in scrolls done in the solid wood, and is French in design. ”

“ It may be readily imagined that at a time when cards were the passion of everybody in society, the card-table became a necessary piece of furniture in eighteenth-century days, just before the dawn of the great age of mahogany, when Chippendale, and the school that followed him, eagerly worked in the wood which Raleigh discovered. They produced countless forms, both original and adapted from the French, which have enriched the répertoire of the cabinetmaker and which have brought fame to the man whose designs added lustre to the reputation of English furniture. ”

“ For the last fifteen or twenty years, therefore, during which time the fashion has obtained of collecting the furniture of a bygone century, almost every cabinet, table, or mirror-frame, presumably of English manufacture, which is slightly removed from the ordinary type of domestic furniture, has been, for want of a better title, called "Chippendale." ”

“ This is supported at the corners by slender white columns, the woodwork being white pine.
In every room are found examples of the most impressive pieces of furniture designed by the old masters. Many were originally in the Southern home and brought over by their immigrant ancestor. Among them are some most artistic pieces, including Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Chippendale. Two chairs of the latter make show shell pattern, one of the most popular of Chippendale's designs. ”