The Hepplewhite settees are, for the most part, double backs or triple backs and follow in design the chair styles of this type. A Hepplewhite settee of 1780 upholstered in silk brocade has the vase detail in the arm-post and the legs are turned and reeded. Other Hepplewhite settees were cane-seated and cushioned, and with these squab cushions were used.
Sheraton himself tells us that cane-work as applied to furniture again came into favor with cabinet-makers about the year 1773. A very fine Sheraton two-back settee painted with medallions by Angelica Kauffmann is extant to test the skill of the eighteenth-century furniture-maker in the reintroduction of the use of cane for seating, and for the backs. Some of the Sheraton settees were upholstered and some were designed for cushion coverings.
The settees of the various French periods followed the general chair-furniture lines in their styles, as did the settees of the English and the American Empire styles.
“Ingenious fancy” now brings us again to the “accomplished sofa.” The settees and love-seats of the Jacobeans, and the couches that had long preceded even them, united in the achievement that Cowper immortalizes and which no early Victorian novelist could have dispensed with in creating his “atmosphere.” The sofas of William and Mary and of Queen Anne were expanded and upholstered settees in effect. Chippendale devoted much attention to the sofa and came to use rolled-over arms in the larger one. Several of these are illustrated in his “Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director,” already referred to. Plate XXX shows two such sofas, and that on Plate XXXI is described by him as follows:
A Design of a Sofa for a grand Apartment, and will require a great Care in the Execution, to make the several Parts come in such a Manner, that all the Ornaments join without the least Fault; and if the Embossments all along are rightly managed, and gilt with burnished Gold, the whole will have a noble Appearance. The Carving at the Toe is the Emblem of Watchfulness, Assiduity, and Rest. The Pillows and Cushions must not be omitted, though they are not in the Design. The Dimensions are nine Feet long without the Scrolls; the broadest Part of the Seat, from Front to Back, two Feet, six Inches; the Height of the Back from the Seat, three Feet, six Inches; and the Height of the Seat one Foot, two Inches, without Casters. I would advise workmen to make a Model of it at large, before he begins to execute it.
The Adam sofas closely fall in with the general features of the Adam style, and the same may be said of the sofas of Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Hepplewhite in his book tells us that the dimensions of sofas “should vary according to the size of the room, but the proportion in general use is, length between 6 and 7 feet; depth about 30 inches; heighth of the seat frame 14 inches; total in the back, 3 feet 1 inch. The woodwork should be either Mahogany or japanned to suit the chairs in the room, and the covering must match that of the chairs.” Four designs of sofas appear in Hepplewhite’s book. Plate 27 therein shows a confidante. Of this he says:
This piece of furniture is of French origin, and is in pretty general request for large and spacious suites of apartments. An elegant drawing-room with modern furniture is scarce complete without a confidante; the extent of which may be about 9 feet, subject to the same regulations as sofas. This piece of furniture is sometimes so constructed that the ends take away and leave a regular sofa; the ends may be used as Barjier chairs.
Of the Duchesse sofa Hepplewhite says:
This piece of furniture is also derived from the French. Two Barjier chairs of proper construction, with a stool in the middle, form the Duchesse, which is allotted to large and spacious ante-rooms; the covering may be various as also the framework, and made from six to eight feet long. The stuffing may be of the round manner as shown in the drawing, or low-stuffed with a loose squab or bordered cushion fitted to each part; with a duplicate linen cover to cover the whole, or each part separately. Confidantes, sofas and chairs may be stuffed in the same manner.
In the rooms of the Antiquarian Society, Concord, Massachusetts, is a sofa which once belonged to Samuel Barron and which shows mixed Hepplewhite and Sheraton characteristics.