Grates, ornamental parts of grates of wrought brass and fire-screens also receive attention. The cornice, wall decorations, borders for paper-hangings, designs for frets that may be applied to various uses, patterns for “handles and escutcheons for brass-work” appear among all the miscellaneous articles. Chamber organs, book shelves, china shelves, terms for busts, stands for tall china vases and beakers and fire-screens are all included. Among the latter we may note that those that stand on four legs are commonly called “horse fire-screens.” Some of them slide up and down, others stand on the horse-leg, and others fold.
Clock-cases also appear; one is ornamented with Gothic columns, and one with a serpent running around the oval dial, “representing Time lasting to Eternity, and the Wings on the sides show how swiftly it flies away.” Table clock-cases also occur.
One of his handsome cisterns, or wine-coolers, which always stood beneath the sideboard table, was cut in the form of a shell supported by cherubs with tails that rose out of the grass. This was to be executed in “wood or marble and cut out of the solid.” The other designs “may be made in parts and joined with the Brass-work.” Tea-kettle stands of delicate proportions, tea-trays and tea-chests received much attention. Some of them had brass or silver ornaments and some were in the Gothic or Chinese taste. The breakfast table and the china table, intended both for use and the display of porcelain, are represented.
No. 1 on Plate [XXXVII.] is a breakfast table. Its height is 28 inches and its leaves 45 inches. Its carved straining-rails are interesting. No. 2 on the same plate is a china table, the straining-rail of which drips profusely with icicles or falling water.
From a careful study of the Gentleman’s and Cabinet-Maker’s Director we find that Chippendale’s favourite ornaments are the shell, the fret, the endive and acanthus leaves, the dolphin, the wyvern, the ram’s head holding swags, the squirrel, the crow, the fox, the long-tailed and long-billed bird, the dog, the lion, the masque, the quatrefoil, ribbons, flowers of various kinds, the spiky thorn, bells, the Chinese mandarin, the Chinese pagoda, the Chinese umbrella, the Chinese canopy with bells at the corners, the monkey’s head, the cockatrice, the pine cone, Cupids, satyrs, Bacchantes, boys blowing horns, the rising sun, the two cɔ, the eagle, the horn, violin, pipes, and the lion’s head. We also note an occasional use of the fluttering ribbon, attributes of music, poetry, hunting, emblems of war, the sea, the bull’s head, the serpent among flowers, the caduceus, and Venus rising from the sea in her shell.
In his Analysis of Beauty, Hogarth says: “There is scarce a room in any house whatever where one does not see the waving line employed in some way or other. How inelegant would the shape of our movables be without it! How very plain and unornamental the mouldings of cornices and chimney-pieces without the variety introduced by the ogee member, which is entirely composed of waving lines!”
The above was printed in 1753, just at the height of the Louis XV. period and the year before Chippendale published his designs. In a few years all that Hogarth so justly admired was destined to pass away, for, as we shall see in the following chapter, the reaction against the graceful and fantastic curve had already begun.
LOUIS XVI. PERIOD
LOUIS XVI. PERIOD