Articles

As we pass from the end of the early Georgian epoch into the period when Chippendale's influence was the dominant power in English furniture designing and making we find a larger number of articles in common household use. A comparison of the list with the lists given in preceding chapters will show which articles were additional.

A complete inventory of pieces made at that time will include chairs, stools, settees (Key VII, 1 and 3), sofas, daybeds, bedsteads, tables, chests (Key IX, 6), chests of drawers (Key VIII, 6), chests on chests, highboys, lowboys, cabinets, secretaries (Key IX, 1), desks, writing tables (Plate XVIII, p. 170), bookcases (Key IX, 3), cupboards, dining tables (Key VII, 5, and VIII, 4), sideboard tables (Key VIII, 5), wardrobes, clothes-presses (Key IX, 4), console cabinets (Plate XX, p. 180), or commodes, sideboards, pedestals, gueridons, candlestands, wine coolers, firescreens, hanging shelves, mirrors and clocks.

Contour

Between the general contour typical of the Queen Anne and Early Georgian period and the general contour typical of the era in which the many-sided Chippendale influence was all prevalent, there was a notable difference. About 1725, owing to the introduction of mahogany a few years previously, a change began to take place in the form of furniture and by 1740 or 1745 this new tendency had become crystallised in well-recognised forms.

The new wood, which had largely supplanted walnut in popular favour, was stronger, tougher, and more elastic than any material hitherto used and admitted of methods of treatment that were formerly impossible. The somewhat squat and solid contour - at times it was even heavy - that had characterised the furniture of earlier date, gradually gave place to greater elegance of line and lighter form. We might say that the element of "flexibility" was visibly increased.

This flexibility was particularly noticeable in the carcases of some of the cabinet work in which the serpentine front was employed (Key VIII, 6). The serpentine curves were used not only for the principal mass of the piece but in such an article, for example, as a secretary the smaller inside drawers would be made to follow the same concurrent curves in reduced scale.

Then there were the bombe fronts and sides that were found in some of the writing tables (Plate XVIII, p. 170), clothes-presses, chests of drawers and commodes or console cabinets (Plate XX, p. 180) inspired by French models. These bombe Chippendale pieces must not be confounded with the earlier swell or kettle front articles of Dutch ancestry. The curve of the bombe front was as a rule far more sweeping and free.

While the Chippendale furniture - and let it be always remembered that we use the term "Chippendale" for all the Chippendale school - was distinctly substantial and visibly indicative of a structural soundness wholly in accord with English traditions, there was, nevertheless, an appreciable advance in general shapeliness and grace of proportion. His chairs, for example, in many instances are practically identical with French originals so far as the scheme of ornamentation is concerned, but in both contour and structure (Key VI, 9) they are purely English-English in the retention of bandy leg, claw foot, broad back and the big Dutch seat of an earlier period.

In connexion with chair contours it should be noted that by the beginning of the Chippendale period a square or approximately square topped back (Key VI, 1) had almost wholly taken the place of the hoop form of back so characteristic of the forepart of the Queen Anne-Early Georgian period. Another significant change also was the continuance of the uprights or backposts in a line with the legs along with the disappearance of the stepped curve just above the seat and the abandonment of "spooning." Chair seats were angled instead of rounded at the front corners and tapered with straight sides to the back.

In the larger cabinet work the contour of the carcase was generally shaped on classic lines but in the matter of embellishment there was the largest latitude. Many of the long bookcases were of the three divisional type (Key IX, 3), that is to say, a central section projected somewhat beyond the flanking wings on each side and was frequently capped by a pediment. The pediments atop bookcases and other pieces of furniture were either straight or of the swan-neck type (Key IX, 1 and 2). Chippendale mouldings are generally of a distinctly architectural character and are not heavy but well proportioned.

In chairs and other pieces of furniture, also, both cabriole and straight, square legs were used and stretchers were often employed but not invariably. In pieces of English and Chinese type we do not find waved, arched or ogeed aprons, while in some of the French pieces, on the other hand, aprons are shaped to receive (Plate XIV, p. 148) the embellishment of carving. Several kinds of bracket feet are used for cabinet work but the ogee style is most often employed, especially the sort sometimes called a Chinese foot (Key IX, 1 and 2) which is distinguished by a peculiar curve (Plate XV, p. 154) often seen in old Chinese jars or in teakwood stands.

CHIPPENDALE BUREAU BOOKCASE WITH FRETTED BRACKET FEET AND FRETWORK ORNAMENT (Of authentic Chippendale origin).

By Courtesy of Richard A. Canfield, Esq., New-York City.

CHIPPENDALE BUREAU BOOKCASE WITH CHINESE BRACKET FEET, STRAIGHT TRA-CERIED DOORS AND SWAN-NECK PEDIMENT.

By Courtesy of Messrs. Maple & Co., Tottenham Court Road, London.