Page 59

WHAT IS THE CHIPPENDALE STYLE? A
STUDY OF THIS GREAT CABINETMAKER:
BY JAMES THOMSON
]AT is the Chippendale style? Most assuredly not that
which a great many people who talk about it take it
to be. For with a perversity as singular as it is un-
accountable, a good many cultivated people have come
to attach the name of Chippendale to pretty much
everything in the way of furniture handed along to
             us from Colonial times. They, in thus doing, not only
work injustice to the memory of a number of talented eighteenth
century English designers, but totally ignore the fact that there are
many Colonial pieces that date a century or more farther back than
the period in which Chippendale worked. Where the first settlers
brought domestic furniture with them, it was of the Stuart period,
such as we of today call Jacobean. While to the influence of the
English eighteenth century furniture
designers the charm of Colonial wood-
work is undoubtedly due, Chippendale
was the responsible agent for but a
part.
   Our Western furniture manufac-
turers, in today exploiting the period
styles, undoubtedly are teaching the
masses to more or less correctly dif-
ferentiate the historic characteristics. -  Ty,-',,  Cn\ r ey ,5  llmt
Up to a time quite recent, Sheraton FIGURE TWO. q 'A     9 b't
chairs, like that shown in Figure twelve, were almost invariably
spoken of as Chippendale, both by the trade and public. The state
of affairs at present is virtually as follows: Real Colonial furniture
of the days of Winthrop and Washington is called Chippendale, the
                            dp.qilna~tiAn ColAnrn~l helint reservedl for
the -clumsy sham classic emanations
sometimes dubbed "Empire," which
did not, in any case, have inception
before eighteen hundred and ten. The
whole misapprehension, doubtless, in
the first place, was due to the ignor-
ance of dealers in the antique, who
could not properly differentiate. They
started on the wrong track, and it now
is difficult to right matters.
FIGURE ONE. QUEEN ANN.            For a great many years, the cabi-
59
i
desionation Colonial beino, reserved for