Thomas Chippendale, (baptized June 5, 1718, Otley, Yorkshire, England—buried November 13, 1779, London), one of many main cabinetmakers of 18th-century England and probably the most perplexing figures within the historical past of furnishings. His title is synonymous with the Anglicized Rococo type.
Nothing is understood of Chippendale’s adolescence till his marriage to Catherine Redshaw in London in 1748. In 1753 he moved to St. Martin’s Lane, the place he maintained his showrooms, workshops, and residential for the remainder of his life. In 1754 he printed his celebrated Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director. This work was an important assortment of furnishings designs theretofore printed in England, illustrating virtually each sort of mid-18th-century home furnishings. The first and second (1755) editions contained 160 plates, and the third version (printed in weekly elements, 1759–62) had 200. The designs largely have been Chippendale’s enhancements on the modern furnishings types and designs of the time.
Chippendale was elected to the Society of Arts in 1759 however declined reelection within the following 12 months. Meanwhile he had change into a companion with James Rannie, apparently an upholsterer, who died in 1766. Chippendale continued the enterprise alone till he took Thomas Haig, Rannie’s former clerk, into partnership in 1771. Chippendale’s first spouse died in 1772, and he married Elizabeth Davis in 1777. He died of tuberculosis two years later.
Although head of an vital agency, Chippendale was not the best of all English furnishings makers, and his exaggerated posthumous repute is attributable largely to the Director. A Twentieth-century scholarly investigation revealed him as basically a collector and intensely gifted modifier of already present types, notably Rococo, which is characteristically utilized in Chippendale’s many designs for mahogany chairs with intricately pierced slats and for elaborately carved case furnishings. Other designs within the Director present the Rococo diversifications of Chinese and Gothic types, some to be carved in softwood and gilded or japanned (an East Asian course of, much like lacquering). Though the plates within the Director are signed by Chippendale, it's now accepted that some have been by different designers within the Rococo type, notably Henry Copland, who had printed designs earlier, and Matthias Lock, whom Chippendale had employed to supply particular designs for shoppers.
Chippendale’s title is given indiscriminately to nice portions of mid-18th-century furnishings, however, in reality, solely comparatively few items could be assigned with certainty to his workshop. Once established as head of a giant agency, he didn't make furnishings himself. Even items that resemble designs within the Director can't be attributed to his store with out additional proof, for the designs have been out there to modern cabinetmakers, a few of whose names seem within the authentic checklist of subscribers. Where a bit corresponds to a Director plate and the place the unique proprietor was a subscriber to the Director or is understood to have employed Chippendale, a tentative attribution could also be made, such because the extraordinary bed room suite at Badminton House, Gloucestershire, now within the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Cabinetmakers within the American colonies borrowed closely from the Director.
From the 1760s onward, influenced by the nice English designer Robert Adam, Chippendale adopted the brand new Neoclassical type. Existing payments for work carried out by his agency at Nostell Priory and Harewood House, Yorkshire, throughout this ultimate section of his profession determine the wonderful Neoclassical mahogany and marquetried satinwood furnishings with which he provided these homes and present that, as cabinetmakers and upholsterers, his agency undertook all branches of inside ornament. His cornice for a Venetian window, sofas, and dressing tables canopied with overdrapes are attribute of the upholsterer’s artwork within the mid-18th century. The excellent satinwood and inlaid commodes (presumably designed by his son Thomas Chippendale II) and different furnishings at Harewood House are masterpieces of the cabinetmaker’s craft, upon which his repute could safely relaxation.