THOMAS CHIPPENDALE
In 2018, a host of events will take place to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Chippendale’s birth. DOMINIQUE CORLETT takes a look at the life of the great Georgian furniture designer
Without a doubt, the best-known name in 18th- century English furniture design – and perhaps any English furniture design predating the 20th century – Thomas Chippendale was responsible for producing some of the finest pieces to grace the grandest homes of Georgian England.
Made mainly in the rococo and neoclassical styles, the range of furniture and furnishings produced by his workshop in London’s fashionable St Martin’s Lane was vast, ranging from chairs, sofas, beds and cabinets, to clock cases, mirrors and wallpaper. Chippendale provided his wealthy clients with everything they needed to stage the most fashionable of interiors, many of which can still be found in England’s best country houses. But his influence went further: the illustrated book of his furniture designs, The Gentleman and Cabinetmaker’s Director, spread his ideas across Britain, Europe and the New World, and sparked a wave of copyists, making the Chippendale name and style famous across the globe.
Chippendale was an only child, born into a family of carpenters in Otley, Yorkshire, in 1718. Not much is known of his early life, but it is likely that he learnt to make furniture as an apprentice to his father. In 1748, aged 30, he moved to London, married Catherine Redshaw (with whom he went on to have nine children) and became a cabinetmaker.
After several years spent designing and making furniture without any great impact on the wider world, his careerdefining moment came in 1754 with the publication of a lavish ‘catalogue’ of his designs, featuring 161 engraved plates of ‘Elegant and Useful Designs of Household Furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and Modern Taste’ (with the last meaning French rococo). It was the first time a cabinetmaker had published a pattern book, and the first edition sold out almost immediately. It was reprinted the following year and again in 1762, with plates added showing designs in the new neoclassical style.
‘ We know who subscribed to the book, because there is a list at the front; it was reaching not only important aristocratic customers but also other furniture-makers,’ says Adam Bowett, chairman of the Chippendale Society, which is co- ordinating the tercentenary celebrations of Chippendale’s birth. Copies of the book circulated throughout Europe (Both Louis XVI of France and Catherine the Great of Russia owned French translations), and also reached the colonial cities of the New World, inspiring furniture-makers as far afield as America to fashion pieces in the Chippendale style.
Meanwhile, business at the workshop boomed. Chippendale employed 40-50 craftsmen to fulfil the lucrative commissions coming in from large country and town houses – often to furnish the entire property – and regularly collaborated with the neoclassical architect Robert Adam. Examples of these top-to-bottom projects can still be seen at several stately homes, including Harewood House and Nostell Priory.
In 1776, three years before his death from tuberculosis, Chippendale passed the business down to his son, also named Thomas. Though the younger man was declared bankrupt in 1804, the Chippendale name lives on. ‘[ Thomas Senior] was simply the most superb designer and furniture-maker, and that’s still as true today as it was then,’ says Adam. ‘ What sets him apart is his inimitable sense of design, proportion and form. Whether he was working in a rococo or neoclassical style, he was able to master the essentials and produce these wonderful works of art. His name continues to represent quality, craftsmanship and a quintessential English style.’
* For details of events taking place to mark the tercentenary of Thomas Chippendale’s birth, visit chippendale300.co.uk