CONSIDERING how comparatively recent is the period which Chippendale adorned, it is somewhat surprising that we should not know more about the man who, as pointed out by Mrs. K. W. Clouston, has usurped a privilege of kings in giving his name to a decorative style. It is true that this is a posthumous claim, supported mainly by the common practice of attributing most mahogany furniture to Chippendale. If he had been widely celebrated during his life it is almost impossible that such meagre details should alone remain; there must surely have been some casual mention of him in contemporary light or ephemeral literature to which we could refer. We may place him at the same level as a master in another branch of art who flourished a little earlier. Of Paul Lamerie, the great silversmith, we know considerably more than we do of Chippendale. He at any rate left a will which gives us interesting details concerning his life's work. As far as is known at present Chippendale's name never occurs in inventories of the period. In the American colonies, whither so much furniture was shipped, it was not heard of.

It is possible that such a writer as Jane Austen might, if she had known it, have enshrined his name in Mansfield Park, when she describes Sotherton as 'amply furnished in the taste of fifty years back, with shining floors, solid mahogany, rich damask, marble, gilding and carving, each handsome in its way.' The book was written from 1812 to 1814, so that she was referring to a period exactly coincident with the last and largest edition of Chippendale's book. The poet Cowper who, writing in 1785, devotes a considerable number of lines to the evolution of The Sofa, might also have been expected to name some master in the craft, but Chippendale's name is nowhere found ; and we are left with the tradition that he came from Worcestershire to London in the reign of George 1., and that his father before him was a carver of mirror-frames. It is, however, not at all unlikely that information might be gleaned from possibly still extant bills or correspondence about the furniture he made for great houses.

The only reference I have found of comparatively early date occurs in the extremely interesting but somewhat ill-natured work by John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and his Times. On page 240 of the second volume of the second edition, dated 1829, speaking of St. Martin's Lane, he says: 'The extensive premises, No. 60, now occupied by Mr. Stutely the builder, were formerly held by Chippendale, the most famous upholsterer and cabinetmaker of his day, to whose folio work on household furniture the trade formerly made constant reference. It contains, in many instances, specimens of the style of furniture so much in vogue in France in the reign of Louis XIV., but which for many years past has been discontinued in England. However, as most fashions come round again, I should not wonder, notwithstanding the beautifully classic change brought in by Thomas Hope, Esq., if we were to see the unmeaning scroll and shell work, with which the furniture of Louis' reign was so profusely incumbered, revive; when Chippendale's book will again be sought after with redoubled avidity, and as many of the copies must have been sold as waste paper, the few remaining will probably bear rather a high price.'