X Chippendale and His Style
| George I. | 1714-1727. | Horace Walpole built Strawberry Hill (1750) Sir William Chambers (1726-1796) built Pagoda at Kew about 1760. Chippendale’s Director published (1754). |
| George II. | 1727-1760. | |
| George III. | 1760-1820. |
Thomas Chippendale, the master cabinetmaker of St. Martin’s Lane, has left a name which, like that of Boule, has become a trade term to mark a certain style in furniture. With the dawn of the age of mahogany, Chippendale produced designs that were especially adapted to the new wood; he relied solely upon the delicate carving for ornament, and rejected all inlay.
Discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought specimens home with him, mahogany did not come into general use till about 1720. The material then used by Chippendale and his school was the splendid mahogany from the great untouched forests, producing at that time timber the like of which, in dimension and in quality, is now unprocurable. The cheaper “Honduras stuff” was then unknown, and English crews landed and cut timber from the Spanish possessions in spite of the protests of the owners. Many a stiff fight occurred, and many lives were lost in shipping this stolen mahogany to England to supply the demand for furniture. These nefarious proceedings more than once threatened to bring about war between England and Spain.
The furniture of France, during the four great periods treated in the previous chapters, was designed for the use of the nobility. One wonders what furniture was in common use by the peasantry in France. In England, too, much of the furniture left for the examination of posterity was made for the use of the wealthy classes. In Jacobean days, settles and chairs, especially the Yorkshire and Derbyshire types, were in more common use, and the homely pieces of Queen Anne suggest less luxurious surroundings, but it was left for Chippendale to impress his taste upon all classes. In the title-page of his great work, the Director, published in 1754, he says that his designs are “calculated to improve and refine the present taste, and suited to the fancy and circumstances of persons in all degrees of life.”
His book of designs, as may naturally be supposed, was not greatly bought by the working classes, but fifteen copies of the Director went to Yorkshire, and many other copies were subscribed for in other parts of the country, so that local cabinetmakers began at once to fashion their furniture after his styles.
The common form of chair at the time was similar to the specimen illustrated (p. 215), which formerly belonged to Oliver Goldsmith, and was bequeathed by him to his friend, Dr. Hawes. This is of soft wood, probably beech, painted green, with circular seat, curved arms, and high back. Chippendale revolutionised this inartistic style, and for the first time in the history of the manufacture of furniture in England, continental makers turned their eyes to this country in admiration of the style in vogue here, and in search of new designs.
It might appear, on a hasty glance at some of Chippendale’s work, that originality was not his strong point. His claw-and-ball feet were not his own, and he borrowed them and the wide, spacious seats of his chairs from the Dutch, or from earlier English furniture under Dutch influence.
Sir William Chambers, the architect of Somerset House, whose fondness for Chinese ornament produced quite a craze, and who built the Pagoda in Kew Gardens, gave Chippendale another source of inspiration. In his later days he came under the influence of the Gothic revival and was tempted to misuse Gothic ornament.
His second style shows the Louis XIV. French decoration in subjection. In his ribbon-back chairs he employed the Louis XVI. ornamentation.
But Chippendale was the most masterly adapter that England has ever produced. His adaptions became original under his hand, and his creations are sturdy and robust, tempered by French subtleties, and having, here and there, as in the fretwork in the chair-legs and angles, a suggestion of the East. He is the prince of chair-makers. His chairs are never unsymmetrical. He knew the exact proportion of ornament that the structure would gracefully bear. The splats in the chairs he made himself are of such accurate dimensions in relation to the open spaces on each side that this touch alone betrays the hand of the master, which is absent in the imitations of his followers.
The illustration given of the Chippendale table in Chinese style (p. 213), is a beautiful and perfect piece of a type rarely met with. It was made by Chippendale for the great-grandmother of the present owner. A similar table was in the possession of the Princess Josephine. In chairs, the back was sometimes of fret-cut work, as was also the design of the legs, with fretwork in the angles, which betray his fondness for the Chinese models. The Gothic style influenced Chippendale only to a slight degree. Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill set the fashion in England, which fortunately was short-lived.
Collectors divide Chippendale’s work into three periods. To the first they assign the more solid chairs or settees with cabriole legs and Louis XIV. ornament, harmoniously blended with Queen Anne style. These chairs and settees are often found with claw-and-ball feet, and are frequently of walnut. Two fine examples of settees, the one of oak, the other of walnut, are illustrated.
The second period embraces the fine creations which have the celebrated Louis XVI. ribbon ornamentation in the backs. From one of the designs in Chippendale’s book, here illustrated, the elegance of the style is shown. It is exuberant enough, but the author complains in his volume that “In executing many of these drawings, my pencil has but faintly carved out those images my fancy suggested; but in this failure I console myself by reflecting that the greatest masters of every art have laboured under the same difficulties.” The ribbon-backed chair illustrated (p. 223) is one of the two given to an ancestor of the present owner by the fourth Duke of Marlborough in 1790. They were formerly at Blenheim, and there is an added interest in them owing to the fact that the seats were worked by Sarah, the great Duchess of Marlborough.
The latest style of Chippendale’s work is the Gothic. There are many pieces in existence which he probably had to produce to satisfy the taste of his fashionable clients, but the style is atrocious, and the less said about them the better. The illustration (p. 225) of a chair-back from his design-book shows how offensive it could be.
The fine corner-chair, here illustrated, exhibits the strength and solidity he could impart to his work. His chairs were meant to sit upon, and are of excellent carpentry. The square, straight legs are a feature of much of his work. The examples belonging to the India Office and the Governors of the Charterhouse illustrated (pp. 226, 227) show the type that he made his own and with which his name has been associated.
Although his chairs are sought after as especially beautiful in design (his father was a maker of chairs before him) he made many other objects of furniture. The mirrors he designed are exquisite examples of fine woodcarving. The one illustrated (p. 229) shows the mastery he had over graceful outline. Bureau bookcases with drop-down fronts have been successfully produced since his day after his models. The one illustrated (p. 231) shows a secret drawer, which is reached by removing the left-hand panel. Card-tables, settees, knife-boxes, tea-caddies, sideboards, and overmantles were made by him, which show by their diversity of technique that there was more than one pair of hands at work in carrying out his designs.
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. But even this is not the top price reached, for two chairs at Christie’s realised eleven hundred pounds!
Chippendale, the shopkeeper, of St Martin’s Lane, who took orders for furniture, which he or his sons, or workmen under their direct supervision, executed, was one person, and Chippendale, who had quarrelled with the Society of Upholsterers, and published a book of designs on his own account, which quickly ran through three editions, was another person. In the one case he was a furniture maker whose pieces bring enormous prices. In the other he was the pioneer of popular taste and high-priest to the cabinetmakers scattered up and down England, who quickly realised the possibilities of his style, and rapidly produced good work on his lines.
These pieces are by unknown men, and no doubt much of their work has been accredited to Chippendale himself. The illustration (p. 232) shows a mahogany chair well constructed, of a time contemporary with Chippendale and made by some smaller maker. This type of chair has been copied over and over again till it has become a recognised pattern. It finds its counterpart in china in the old willow-pattern, which originated at Coalport and has been adopted as a stock design.
Furniture is not like silver, where the mark of the maker was almost as obligatory as the hall mark. Artists, both great and small, have signed their pictures, and in the glorious days of the great French ébénistes and metal-chasers, signed work is frequently found. But in England, at a time when furniture of excellent design, of original conception, and of thoroughly good workmanship was produced in great quantities, the only surviving names are those of designers or cabinetmakers who have published books.
So great was the influence of the style of Chippendale that it permeated all classes of society. An interesting engraving by Stothard (p. 235) shows the interior of a room, and is dated 1782, the year that Rodney gained a splendid victory over the French fleet in the West Indies, and the year that saw the independence of the United States recognised.
Kitchen furniture or cottage furniture was made on the same lines by makers all over the country. The wood used was not mahogany; it was most frequently beech. Chairs of this make are not museum examples, but they are not devoid of a strong artistic feeling, and are especially English in character. More often than not the soft wood of this class of chair is found to be badly worm-eaten. Two chairs of this type, of beech, are illustrated (p. 233), and it is interesting to note that, as in the instance of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire chairs of Jacobean days made by local makers, it is not common to find many of exactly the same design. The craftsman gave a personal character to his handiwork, which makes such pieces of original and artistic interest, and cabinetmaking and joinery was not then so machine-made as it is now.
It may be here remarked that the earlier pieces of the eighteenth century were polished much in the same manner as was old oak previously described. Highly polished surfaces and veneers, and that abomination “French polish,” which is a cheap and nasty method of disguising poor wood, bring furniture within the early nineteenth-century days, when a wave of Philistine banalities swept over Europe.