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Chippendale and Sheraton Design Styles The History of the Origin of the Design Period Known as Early American Colonial Furniture

Thomas Chippendale, in the tracing of the origins of the style known as early American colonial furniture the best known of all English chair-makers, was born four years after George I came to England, and died at the age of sixty-one (1718-1779). Probably the son of a Yorkshire village carpenter, he came to London, and in 1754 made his firm's name by publishing the first of the books mentioned above. It was called "The Gentlemen and Cabinet-Maker's Directory" and so was addressed both to those who ordered and to those who made furniture. This famous book brought Chippendale to the notice of wealthy people, and he was soon able to act as managing director of his business rather than as a working cabinet-maker. At first he followed every fashion that arose, although his work was always distinguished by exquisite craftsmanship and strength of construction. The extraordinary imagination of his drawings was always toned down by his practical common sense when the work was under the chisel and plane. He used mahogany almost exclusively for his work. The features we usually remember most with regard to his designs for chairs are the wonderful originality and variety of his designs for the "splat", and the fact that whatever the shape or decoration his chairs all stand firmly as if capable of long hard service.

Hepplewhite Chair

Oval Chair Back (Late Eighteenth Century)

His work brought him to the notice of a famous Scotch architect, Robert Adam, who had studied in Italy, and who was engaged in building and rebuilding gentlemen's houses. Adam believed that the whole of the house was the architect's business, down to the decoration and the furnishing, and he engaged Chippendale to carry out many of his furniture schemes. Much of the work that we definitely know was carried out by Chippendale's firm was designed or influenced by Adam.

Nine years after Chippendale died, and while his firm was carrying on under him another book was published under the name of George Hepplewhite. We know very little about this man, and he had been dead two years before his book was printed. The book was almost entirely influenced by Robert Adam, and shows a de­velopment from the substantial Chippendale type to a very much lighter and simpler treatment. Chairs had lost their "square" appearance, backs became gracefully rounded and curved, and, above all, satin-wood, which had been introduced somewhere about 1760, began to challenge the sole use of mahogany.

Another rather strange character Thomas Sheraton overlapped Chippendale and Hepplewhite, dying in 18o6. He came from Stockton-on-Tees in Durham, and settled in London when he was forty years old. He had probably been a journeyman cabinet­maker, but in London made a living by teaching drawing, designing furniture for the trade, and writing books, partly on furniture, partly on religious subjects. He designed extremely graceful chairs. He rejected heavy carving and exaggerated forms but employed a straightness of the back, a breadth of seat and a straight leg in front so that his chairs combine grace with a strength of construction that fitted them for general use. To this he added very delicate ornament, "fluting" and "reeding" arms and legs, and using sometimes the delightful inlay that is always associated with his name.

Returning for a moment to France in the tracing of the origins of the style known has early American colonial furniture, we know that the Revolution there swept away all old customs and that Napoleon emerged from , the chaos and finally established himself as Emperor in 1804. The new military Empire vied in splendour with the old French Kingdom. The Court was filled with figures in resplendent uniforms. Furniture was produced to give an effective background to this display. Profuse use was made of gilding and of applied gilt metal ornaments. It is especially interesting that this late development of furniture­making returned for inspiration to the earliest we have mentioned, to the Egyptian and to the Roman. Just as depicted in the Egyptian tomb paintings, chair backs were given a comfortable slope and a roll over at the top, while the legs were given the delicate outward curve of Greek and Roman designs. A reflection of this style came to England and is most commonly seen in the form of inlaying in brass which had a short vogue.

After Sheraton died, in 1806, the spirit seemed to go from furniture designing. The splendidly skilled craftsmen continued to produce mahogany furniture that often is superb in workmanship, and, in suitable surroundings, is sometimes very fine indeed. It is always rather heavy in appearance, it is very heavy to move. The polish is usually beyond all praise, but no effort was made at relief by inlay, and the uniformly dark shade of mahogany does not suit our modern taste for sunlit rooms and happy colours. This has been generally recognised, and the present is a time of change and experiment. Some chair-makers study all old types, and by choosing and adapting these are attempting to satisfy our modern needs, while others say boldly that there is no need to worry about old ways but that it is right and proper and quite possible to use either the old or new materials in an entirely new way for up-to-date require­ments. So that in chair-making experiments are made with tubular metal and with plywood that are strange to the eye but admirably suited to their purpose.

It may be noticed the tracing of the origins of the style known has early american colonial furniturethat constant reference has been made to the well-to-do, to nobles and merchants, to kings and palaces, to castles, manor houses and country houses, but scarcely anything about the poorer people. Until the time of the Civil War between Charles and his Parliament, cottagers and poor folk generally were content with stools or forms. During the reign of Charles II the use of chairs began very slowly to spread, no doubt first in inns for the use of travelling gentlefolk and in the homes of shopkeepers and the like. The makers of chairs for the gentry would no doubt fill in time between orders by making simpler and cheaper chairs for pockets that were not so well lined, or, it may be, for their own homes. The wood-turner had never quite ceased making the Scandinavian type of chair with turned spindles and triangular seat, and had been kept busy with stool and chair legs and arms, etc., from Elizabeth's time. So that so soon as a need arose, first in the inns where men met together, then in the kitchens and servants' quarters of large houses, and lastly in the cottage homes of the people themselves, for cheap "cottage" chairs there arose in well­wooded areas, in Buckinghamshire and in the north, a cheap chair industry. This industry was fostered by a demand for a suitable cheap chair for outdoor use in the tea gardens around London and at fashionable resorts, but more by the effect of the Industrial Revolution in building enormous numbers of workmen's dwellings at the new industrial towns. Each of these tenements required a few "sticks" of furniture, however cheap they might be.

In the south the familiar "Windsor chair" was evolved, the main feature of which was turned spindles for legs, stretchers, backs, etc. They were not the "joined" or "joint" work of cabinet-makers, but were of the kind that carpenters were permitted to make in the old days. They were made of native and not of im­ported wood, of elm for the seat, yew or ash for the frame, and beech or ash for the spindles. Much of the work, particularly the turning, was done in the woods from which the timber was obtained. An attempt was sometimes made to copy the fashionable modes of the day, and shaped splats were introduced. One design, the "wheel­back", became extraordinarily common. At first the Windsor chairs had a top rail at the back, but it was found that if wood were steamed, it could be bent to shape and would retain that shape, and so the "hoop back" was introduced, which was really the precursor of the Austrian "bent-wood" chairs.