The cabriole leg, the leading characteristic of Queen Anne furniture, soon made its appearance in the couch support.
Upholstery became more popular than ever, as enormous quantities of silks and velvets were being produced during Anne’s reign. Chintzes, and printed cottons, too, were in demand for couch covers. Lacquered couches and marqueterie couches were also in vogue during this reign, but few of these appear to have survived, and such as have are treasured accordingly.
About 1720—two years after Anne’s death—mahogany came into general use in furniture-making. Cabinet-makers lost no time in employing this wood in the making of couches. Seven years after this, Thomas Chippendale and his father were established in London. In 1749 Chippendale opened his conduit Street shop in the Longacre section. Here he worked until his removal to St. Martin’s Lane. A year after, in 1754, he brought out his famous book, “The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director.”
The couches were being supplanted to great extent by the sofa during the time of the Georges, in which Chippendale lived, but such couches as remain show the various Chippendale lines. The brothers Adam (1672-1792), following their taste for Italian things, and designing for lighter woods and forms, gave more attention to the couch, perhaps, than Chippendale had done. Unlike the Chippendale couches, the Adam couches were without the end supports. George Hepplewhite, who died in 1786, gave to English furniture a well-defined style. The first edition of “The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide” was published by his widow, Alice Hepplewhite, in 1788. Hepplewhite, as had the brothers Adam, came strongly under the influence of the classic. Hepplewhite couches employ an end such as that which upholstered sofas had suggested. They also received inspiration from the French furniture of the time. In his book Hepplewhite gives on Plate XXXII, “Two designs of couches or what the French call Péché Mortel.” It has not been my good fortune to come across a Sheraton couch in the strict sense of the word, though I presume such were made by Thomas Sheraton (1750-1806). His “Cabinet-maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book” first appeared in 1791; but it concerned itself more with settees than with dwelling particularly on true couch designs.
The couches of the French periods—Louis XIV (1643-1715), Louis XV (1715-1774), Louis XVI (1774-1793), and the Empire (1792-1830)—all follow the well-known lines of these Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, Louis Seize, and Empire styles, and it will not be necessary here to go into detail concerning them. The English and American cabinet-makers of the years 1792 to 1830 adapted French Empire styles and as a result produced furniture which we may designate as English Empire or American Empire, as the case may be.
The settee of the Jacobean period was a development of the double chair or love-seat. It followed the general styles of the period in legs and stretchers. The back usually was upholstered. It was not in general use until walnut had come to supersede oak. For this reason the Jacobean settees are for greater part of walnut.
The William and Mary period settees found the double chair back in favor, and comfortable indeed were these settees, many of them being provided with squab cushions in addition to their upholstered seats, backs, and ends. The William and Mary settees were somewhat shorter than the generously long settees of the Jacobean period.
Queen Anne settees were designed with straight backs, these backs doing away with the double-hoop backs of the settees of the reign that preceded Anne’s. These backs were considerably lower, and, as with the couches, the cabriole leg formed a distinctive characteristic. In the Queen Anne settees of a later time the double back without upholstery came in again. The seats of these settees were depended upon for occasional use at the back.
Chippendale’s settees followed the lines of his designs for chairs. His window-seats did likewise. Colonel Wentworth’s “Chinese Settee” of the Chippendale style is now in the Ladd House at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Very elegant indeed were the settees and the window-seats of the brothers Adam. Both coincided in lines with Adam chairs. The window-seats, though so often following Chippendale forms, were a refinement of these latter. They were supported by four or by six legs, usually, though several window-seats of Adam style have eight legs. These settees bear the characteristic fluting on the front rail.