Figure 13.—English styles (1760-1800).

Except for his furniture which used the cabriole legs and Rococo ornament of Louis XV, Hepplewhite employed the straight tapering leg, square or round, and plain-fluted or reeded, with straight, collard, or spade feet. Chair backs were most characteristically of shield shape, filled with carved styling, urns, the feather back, or the interlocking heart form. These backs were supported by a construction of the back legs, and were not attached to the seats. Front legs (except in the case of the cabrioles) were perpendicular to the floor, while back legs curved outward to balance the rake of the back. Console cabinets were often semielliptical, and sideboards were rectangular except for concave curves near the ends.

For covering, Hepplewhite insisted upon silks and satins, and he was especially fond of narrow stripes. He often designed or selected the draperies used with his furniture and chose the narrow stripes of plain lines and serpentine pattern of the French styles, as well as designs of ribbons, festoons and tassels, shields, circles, and garrya husks.

THE SHERATON FURNITURE STYLE

Thomas Sheraton (born 1751; died 1806) was the last of the great English furniture designers. He was strongly influenced by Louis XVI and Adam designs.

Sheraton was not a money maker, although, in addition to cabinetmaking, he worked as a drawing master, preacher, author, and publisher. However, he was a great cabinetmaker and a great designer, unsurpassed and probably unequaled by any man of his race in the making of cabinets, secretaries, sideboards, dressers, and tables. (See fig. 3a, p. [16].)