Chambers took to architecture, went to Italy, and returned in 1755, bringing, as had been done before, Italian carvers to execute the marble mantelpieces which he designed. In these he discarded the great superstructures of Inigo Jones and Wren and Gibbons. The chimneypiece was no longer regarded as part and parcel of the panel decoration of the room, and became almost of the nature of a movable, in so far as it was ordered without reference to the style of the room, exactly as nowadays we purchase a table or a chair. At Kew he had the opportunity of practising the Chinese fashion on a great scale, whilst in Somerset House he showed his capacities in a more serious style. His appointment as Royal Architect and Treasurer of the Royal Academy, together with his own undoubted culture and intimacy with men of taste, made him just such an authority as Kent; and there is no doubt that his influence upon the cabinetmakers was very great indeed. We shall see later on what was his actual cabinet-designing capacity.

It is convenient in this place, before discussing Chippendale and his chief contemporaries and successors in detail, to give a list of the principal furniture design-books which were published in the eighteenth century. They do not afford us such irrefragable evidence as to dates as was supplied by the stamp which the French 'Maitre Hbeniste' was obliged by law, after the year 1751, to place upon his furniture. That mark in many cases enables us to give an exact attribution of a commode or a table to a Riesener or a Carlin, a Pafrat or a Petit. It must not be supposed that even the majority of the designs in these books were executed by their authors. Chippendale himself remarks of a certain plate in his books, that he should have 'much pleasure in the execution of it.' In the list of what might have been, may no doubt be placed most of those grandiose and fantastic bedsteads in which the designers loved most to allow their fancy full play. In another list could be grouped together those designs which were carried out with limitations, those in which (upon the score of expense) much carving was omitted, whilst the general shape was retained.

It is probable that in the case of many of these the world has not lost much; perhaps it has even gained by the omission of unnecessary ornament.

Thirdly, we must remember that those books were not merely published by the author to show what he himself had done, or could do, but were intended as pattern-books for cabinetmakers in London and the provinces, and indeed wherever English furniture designs were required. An eclectic provincial might chop and change between designs, so as to produce a chair or table whose every detail might recall something in the pattern-book, though its exact prototype would be sought in vain. This would account for the existence of many actual examples which show excellent shape and workmanship, but can be definitely attributed to none of the known makers. Charming pieces of this kind are frequent amongst our illustrations, and show to what a pitch of artistic feeling many an anonymous carver and joiner could attain.