Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture

by Arthur Hayden

OAK CHAIR, COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE. WITH DROPPED SEAT.

In the lower group, the right-hand chair is of the Chippendale type. The other two chairs have features of three styles—the Queen Anne, the Chippendale, and the Sheraton. It is this piquancy and incongruous combination of styles adjacent to each other in point of time, but having little other relationship, which make the provincialisms of the cabinet-maker of exceptional interest.

At times more ambitious attempts were made in oak, following the lines of the Chippendale style in mahogany. These have pronounced features always recognisable as belonging to the farmhouse variety of furniture. Two examples are illustrated, p. [219]. The upper example of country-made oak settee, with double back, at once indicates that it is provincial by the shaped underframing, which is never found in other classes of furniture. The lower example of farmhouse oak settee is clearly in Chippendale's Chinese style. A reference to the "Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Directory," published by Thomas Chippendale in 1754, shows that this Chinese style adopted by the local maker is very far removed from the series of delicate fretwork designs illustrated by Chippendale in his volume. It is true that the old designer of St. Martin's Lane sent forth his work with the sub-title stating that it was "calculated to improve and refine the present Taste, and suited to the Fancy and Circumstances of Persons in all Degrees of Life." The great master cabinet-maker, in scattering his designs far and wide, evidently had in mind the formation of a new style. He builded better than he knew. The importance of his book of designs cannot be overrated. It was subscribed for in Yorkshire, in Devon, in Westmorland, and in Ireland, and straightway minor men looked upon these delightful inventions and began to follow to the best of their ability the ideals set forth by Chippendale the dreamer.

That he was an idealist in this book of designs is naïvely explained in his Preface: "I frankly confess that in the executing many of the drawings my pencil has but faintly copied out those images that my fancy suggested, and had they not been published till I could have pronounced them perfect, perhaps they had never seen the light." But Chippendale was also a practical cabinet-maker as well as a designer. He has a lingering doubt that after all, perhaps, the country cabinet-maker and those who bought the book for use might not be able to carry out his designs. Evidently this had struck others too. Perhaps he was accused of fobbing-off in a design-book mere fanciful work that was too far above the plane of ordinary cabinet-work. He meets this objection with a declaration, so to speak, upon honour, with which he winds up his Preface, which is a pretty piece of eighteenth-century advertising:—

"Upon the whole, I have given no design but what may be executed with advantage by the hands of a skilful workman, though some of the profession have been diligent enough to represent them (especially those after the Gothic and Chinese manner) as so many specious drawings, impossible to be worked off by any mechanic whatsoever. I will not scruple to attribute this to malice, ignorance, and inability, and I am confident I can convince all noblemen, gentlemen, or others, who will honour me with their commands, that every design in the book can be improved, both as to beauty and enrichment, in the execution of it, by—Their Most Obedient Servant, Thomas Chippendale."

Enough has been said to prove that "country Chippendale" is not a misnomer. It is equally true that the Hepplewhite style was disseminated in like fashion in the provinces. It must be remembered that these trade catalogues, as they really were, brought out somewhat in rivalry with each other by the great London designers and cabinet-makers, were the only literature the country makers had to indicate town fashions. These volumes therefore served a double purpose in procuring clients for the firm and in stimulating the art of the country designer. That they were in part intended to be educational is shown by the Preface to the "Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide," published by A. Hepplewhite & Co., Cabinet-makers. We quote from the Preface of the third edition, "improved," 1794.

The Preface opens with a lament that owing to "the mutability of all things, but more especially of fashions," foreigners who seek a knowledge of English taste and workmanship may be misled by the "labours of our predecessors in this line of little use."

"The same reason in favour of this work will apply also to many of our own countrymen and artisans, whose distance from the metropolis makes even an imperfect knowledge of its improvements acquired with much trouble and expense."

"In this instance we hope for reward; and though we lay no claim to extraordinary merit in our designs, we flatter ourselves they will be found serviceable to young workmen in general, and occasionally to more experienced ones."

In view, therefore, of the books of design we have enumerated, it is obvious that the country designer had a new field open to him, and now and again he made ample use of his opportunities. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century there was quite an outburst of literature on furniture, much of it forgotten and much of it waiting to be disinterred by patient research; and with the dissemination of these fine designs some of the most perfect examples of country-made furniture began to exhibit touches of skill of the practised hand.