The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
Chippendale is best known for his chairs, of which he originated a number of distinctive types, but he also built (for he was a manufacturing artisan as well as a designer) beds, secretaries, desks, tables, cabinets, sideboards, sofas, bureaus, dressing tables —in fact, nearly all modern forms. One of his state bedsteads is a marvel of massive yet delicate beauty in its perfectly balanced proportions. Genuine Chippendale furniture today is extremely rare despite the profusion of pieces executed in his shops.
Chippendale's furniture was not only structurally sound but carried still further the tendency toward lightness and grace started under William and Mary, and in his great versatility he sought inspiration from many different sources. He continued in his English models to employ the Queen Anne ball and claw foot, the cabriole leg and club, scroll and hoof foot. Gothic influence is shown in the quatrefoil and trefoil and in a variety of adapted geometrical forms. From France he borrowed rococo of Louis XV and later, when the world of fashion went mad over a book of Chinese architectural designs by Sir William Chambers, he introduced pagoda cabinet tops and square fretted legs and table aprons.
It is therefore necessary to differentiate rather sharply between purely English, French, Gothic and Chinese Chippendale, although motifs of the two latter were often so mingled as to be undistinguishable. Cupboards, secretaries, settees, bureaus and dressing tables were apt to be English, bedsteads French, tables Chinese or Gothic, and chairs any one of the four. One of the most distinctive Chippendale designs is known as the "ribband" back chair, the carved splat of which shows a knotted ribbon with four loops. All Chippendale chairs show strong evidence of consideration for comfort, the seats being square cornered, well upholstered, of adequate size and tapering straight toward the back. The top rails were either square, arched or serpentine, meeting uprights that flared outward on each side—an effect of singular beauty.
In 1733, about the time Chippendale was starting on his career, the British prime minister, Walpole, removed the duty on the importation of mahogany logs. The use of this wood immediately became widespread among cabinet makers and its great flexibility so appealed to Chippendale's passion for carving that he employed it almost to the exclusion of all else. Carving was practically his sole form of ornamentation—turning was used but little, and inlay never. Varicolored lacquer work on cabinets, gilding and marquetry disappeared and upholstery, while generous, included fabrics in more restrained designs than hitherto.
