The Age Of Rococo - England - Part 12

Chippendale's essays in chinoiserie range from far fetched confections, like his design for a japanned china case - carved, canopied and dripping with icicles and bells - to chunky sideboards and library tables, plain except for blind fret-cutting in the friezes, and fretted brackets of a faintly Chinese flavour.

The Director includes drawings of beds and pillars for beds, cornices, picture-frames, organ cases, lanterns and stove-grates; dressing tables, writing tables, commode tables, sideboard tables, china tables, breakfast tables and shaving tables; for basin stands, candle stands, clock cases and tea caddies. There are even designs for 'Handles and Escutcheons for Brass Work' and patterns of Chinese railings for 'genteel Fences for gardens etc'.

Chippendale borrowed his ideas from all quarters and, on the whole, ilustrated handmade furniture forms which had been in use for some time. His designs for 'Bason Stands' and 'A Shaving Table' are among the few new ideas, and herald the more sophisticated washstands and toilet tables of the later 18th century. It is noteworthy that Chippendale illustrated a number of sideboard tables, but no sideboards - this was another item that evolved much later in the 18th century. Large dining tables are also absent; in this period people generally took their meals in small groups, often from the square, oval or round flap table known as a Pembroke, which was used for various purposes throughout the second half of the 18th century. It wasn't until the last quarter of the century that the dining room, furnished with an extendible table which could sea a dozen or so, became fairly commonplace.

Chippendale was undoubtedly a well known figure in cultural circles. He was a member of the Society of Arts, and also among the 308 subscribers to The Director were some of the most cultivated men of the day as well as a procession of cabinet-makers, upholsterers and chair-makers.
His most accomplished furniture was the Neoclassical style, which is often copied today with more modern reproduction furniture techniques, and in this he carried out the decoration for some of the grand houses of the period, among them Nostell Priory and Harewood House in Yorkshire, and Mersham-le-Hatch in Kent, whose interiors were designed by Robert Adam. At the same time, his workshops turned out a vast range of quite ordinary but well-made fitted and non fitted furniture for the homes of the middle-classes; he was in business as an upholsterer, undertaker and paperhanger, and was not above importing unfinished furniture from France, and getting into trouble from customs officers for not declaring its full value.

Comparatively few pieces can be attributed to his workshop with absolute certainty, and of these, the plain and elegant designs carried out for Ninian Home at Paxton House, Berwickshire, are probably far more representative of his usual work than his virtuoso performances for Harewood House.