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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Thomas Chippendale
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(1718–79)
The best-known English cabinet-maker of the mid-18C, largely because he published in 1754 an unusually detailed and wide-ranging collection of furniture designs, known as the Director (in full The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director). The designs are mainly *rococo in style, one particularly influential section indulging the taste for *chinoiserie in what became known as Chinese Chippendale.
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There is no clear evidence as to how many of the designs were Chippendale's own (as opposed to being commissioned from other designers or lifted from foreign sources), and pieces were immediately produced to these patterns by other cabinet-makers. Therefore most mid-18C Chippendale is merely furniture based on one of the plates in the Director or done in a similar style. But in some great houses (*Nostell Priory, for example) documents survive to authenticate pieces as having come from Chippendale's own workshop in St Martin's Lane, London.
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From about 1770 he adopted the *neoclassical style under the influence of Robert *Adam, providing superb furniture for Adam's decorative schemes in such houses as *Harewood. The firm continued into the 19C under its founder's son, also Thomas Chippendale (1749–1822).
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