The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Furniture Finishing
Hepplewhite produced practically all of the pieces with which we are familiar in every day life. His chairs show the greatest variety, but there was also a profusion of tables for all purposes —drop-leaf with one oval and one square end, two of which might be joined to form a long table; Pembroke tables, washstands, console tables, many of them with delicately inlaid tops and slender tapering reeded or fluted legs.
Of a number of innovations occurring in his time might be cited the decline of the once popular high and lowboys in favor of chests of drawers on the order of our modern chiffoniers. Stools, too, disappeared and the dressing table was redesigned to permit the lady to sit closer to the mirror. Bureaus, chests of drawers, sideboards and book cases were provided with an undulating or serpentine front, sometimes applied only to the centre section, the end parts cut concave. The tambour desk has a drop front with pull out bars on either side to support it.
Hepplewhite's chairs, which were his hobby, are characterized by backs of rare beauty in heart, hoop, shield, oval and lyre shapes. The emblem most closely associated with him, the Prince of Wales plume, three feathers arising and spreading from a ring, was frequently carved in the centre. Slightly flaring arms surmount upholstered seats which taper or curve gently to the back. Legs are generally square tapering down to ankled spade feet. The Dutchess chair, a novelty of the time, consists of two joined armchairs, one faced reverse from the other.
Hepplewhite is a blend of designs. He borrowed the classic impartially from Louis XVI patterns and from the Adam Brothers, many of whose commissions he executed and incidentally made practical. For Hepplewhite was English to the core and favored neither the curve to the extent of Chippendale nor the straight line to the extent of Sheraton. In short he achieved lightness, grace and appealing outline, but never at the sacrifice of sturdiness.
Like his contemporaries he favored mahogany, invariably employing it where carving was part of the scheme. Nevertheless he was a pioneer with many lighter woods, notably sycamore for fancy veneering, tulipwood, ebony, rosewood and white holly for inlay and division lines, and satinwood as a base for the beautiful decorative hand painting of Angelica Kauffman and Italian artists. Sideboards and desks were embellished with small carved rosettes, medallions and festoons, ivory keyplates and brass ring pulls, all employed with the greatest restraint. Lacquering on secretary desks was still practiced to some extent, but the Chinese vogue was on the wane.
