HANDBOUND

AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS
 T

LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT

OLD FURNITURE
IV. SHERATON PERIOD
LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT
OLD FURNITURE
Uniformly bound. Crown 8vo.
Price 2s. 6d. net.

I. TUDOR TO STUART
II. QUEEN ANNE
III. CHIPPENDALE AND HIS SCHOOL
IV. THE SHERATON PERIOD
London WILLIAM HEINEMANN
:

21 Bedford Street, W.C. 2.

u
1

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.3

I
LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT OLD FURNITURE
ENGLISH FURNITURE: BY A. E. REVIERS-
HOPKINS VOLUME IV

THE SHERATON
PERIOD
POST-CHIPPEND ALE
DESIGNERS, 1760-1820

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON MCMXIX
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
First Printed, October 1912;
New Impressions, July 1913;
May 1917; August 1919
INTRODUCTION
IN compiling the first four volumes of this

series, covering the four great periods in the

development of English Furniture, from Tudor

to Georgian times, the writers have very natu-

rally in turn held a brief for each period. In

Volume I,whilst extolling the delights of old oak
in general, and sideboards, coffers, and draw-
tables in particular from the purely decorative

point of view, they frankly warned the reader

that very little in the direction of absolute com-
fort could be expected from the farm-house
settle, joyned stool, or angular and unyielding
arm-chair.
The Elizabethan oak bedstead was practically
dismissed as unhygienic, evenif, from its extreme

rarity and consequent high value, it came within

hail of the modest collector. In Volume II
(written, as in the case of Volume I, in colla-
boration with Mr. J. P. Blake), dealing with the
Queen Anne period, a claim was advanced that
the prevailing curves in the outlines and the
more ample proportions introduced under Dutch
influence brought the walnut-wood seats well
within the range of practical household politics ;
whilst the roomy wardrobes, escritoires, and
iv v b
vi INTRODUCTION
glazed cabinets of the same period have in no
sense outlived their usefulness.
In the volume of the series the writers
first

explained at some length that the books were

being written for the amateur collector, and
more especially the collector of moderate means.
This idea has been kept in view all through the
series. The writers have endeavoured to give
the benefit of their experience to those who,
whilst having no desire to turn their homes
into museums, would live with interesting old
furniture in preference to equally useful but
uninteresting new furniture.
Thepresent volume covers the period of the
post-Chippendale designers, from Ince and
Mayhew to Sheraton and the Brothers Adam,
all of whom lived and worked during the sixty

years of the reign of George III. (1760 to 1820).

Practically all the furniture of the period is
suitable for present-day requirements. This is
emphasised in the fact that the bulk of the
furniture of to-day is modelled on the eighteenth-

century conventions.
A great number of admirable books have been
published during recent years dealing with the
period, and the present writer records his thanks
for the help he has received from them. A short
bibliography is included in the volume.
 INTRODUCTION vii

The illustrations have been drawn from the

collection both National and Loan at the
Victoria and Albert Museum, from private
friends, and the stocks of some of the well-known
dealers in London and the provinces. Special
thanks are due to Mr. George Stoner, of West
Wickham, Kent, for photographs of fine painted

specimens in his collection; to the Hon. Sir

Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, K.C.B., for permission

to reproduce the Adam chairs at
Brympton.
Other photographs, gratefully acknowledged,
have been supplied by Mr. C. J. Charles, of
Brook Street, Hanover Square ; Mr. Edward,
of King Street, St. James's; Messrs. Horsfield
Bros., of 19 Orchard Street, W. ; Mr. F. W.
Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin ; and Mr.

J.H. Springett, of 12 High Street, Rochester.

Other acknowledgments will be found in the
text.

A. E. REVEIRS-HOPKINS
THE CROFT,
UPMINSTER, ESSEX
CHAPTERS
PAGE
I. OLD FURNITURE AND MODERN TASTE i

II. POST-CHIPPENDALE DESIGNERS

CHRONOLOGICAL 10

III. INCE AND MAYHEW'S UNIVERSAL

SYSTEM " AND MANWARING'S " CHAIR
"
MAKER'S FRIEND , 15

IV. HEPPLEWHITE AND " THE GUIDE " 24

V. SHEARER AND " THE BOOK OF PRICES " 47
VI. ADAM AND THE CLASSICAL INFLU-
ENCE 58
VII. SHERATON-THE MAN AND HIS AIMS 76
VIII. SHERATON AND "THE DRAWING
BOOK" 87
IX. SHERATON PERIOD FURNITURE 96
X. SHERATON, EMPIRE, AND TRAFALGAR
PERIOD SEATS AND CHAIRS 113
INDEX 133
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE writer is much indebted to the undermentioned writers and
their books :

CLOUSTOK "
R. S. :
English Furniture and Furniture Makers of
the Eighteenth Century." (Hurst and Blackett, Limited,
London.)
SIMON "
CONSTANCE :
English Furniture Designers of the

Eighteenth Century." (B. T. Batsford, London.)

"
G. M. ELLWOOD :
English Furniture and Decoration,
1680-1800." (B. T. Batsford, London.)
" Old
G. OWEN WHEELER :
English Furniture of the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries." (L. Upcott Gill, London.)

J.
H. POLLEN, M.A., and T. A. LEHFELDT: "Ancient and
Modern Furniture and Woodwork, VoL I." (Victoria and
Albert Museum Handbook.)

Mr. B. T. High Holborn, London, has reproduced

Batsford, 94
"
several of the eighteenth- century design boob, including The
Decorative Work of R. and J. Adam," with reproductions of all
" " " "
the plates ; Chippendale's Director Hepplewhite's Guide ;;

"
and selections from Sheraton's Drawing Book."
CHAPTER I: OLD FURNITURE
AND MODERN TASTE
IN the period covered by this and the preceding
volume * of this series the last word on furniture
was said by the furniture- maker. The Victorian
designer could produce nothing better than
the chattels made by or under the influence of

Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and the

Brothers Adam in the eighteenth century.
Doubtless the Arts and Crafts Exhibition
Society, founded in 1888 under the presidency
of Sir Walter Crane, did, and is still doing,

something for the advancement of taste in house-

hold appointments. To give the gist of a clever
article which appeared in the Morning Post some
two or three years since, on the aims and work
of the Society the late William Morris did much
:

to demolish the antimacassar and the horsehair

sofa of the Victorian era. But even he did little
or nothing to replace that which he demolished.

Apparently out of sympathy with the period,

or frankly admitting the hopelessness of the
task, he did nothing to improve on the lines
of eighteenth-century furniture conventions.
* " Little Books about Old
Furniture," Vol. III.
Chippendale
Period. By J.P.Blake.
IV I A
2 OLD FURNITURE
Steeped to the lips, as he was, in medievalism
he confined his efforts in design to the more
distinctly decorative arts. The article referred
to puts it very lucidly :
" As there are certain
things made to perfection in the fifteenth

century still suitable for modern use or modern

buildings, such as
tapestries, carpets, fabrics,
and stained glass, Morris, too, in his own way,
made these things to perfection. His firm still
make at the works at Merton Abbey, tapestry
which is
technically quite as fine as mediaeval
work. He compromised with modernity in
also

wall-papers and cretonnes, materials unknown in

his favourite Middle Ages. With all the
. . .

prestige of Morris and Co., and all the literary

and artistic glamour clinging to the aftermath of
' '
the Pre-Raphaelites, the Arts and Crafts
cannot be said to have left a very distinctive
mark on English decoration in the nineteenth
century. ... So you are often reduced to
wondering who, outside Bedford Park, ever
possessed the courage to furnish and decorate
entirely on the lines suggested by the Society.
The most noticeable result of the movement
(superficially, no doubt) was UArt Nouveau or
'
Modern Style/ as it was called in Paris. This
atrocious fashion spread all over Germany and
leaked into Italy even. . . . The English public,
 OLD FURNITURE 3
which has a keen sense of quality in manufacture
if not in art, sought oblivion in the eighteenth

century. There was a reaction in favour of the

great French periods of furnishing, especially
among plutocrats, and this was stimulated by
the opening of the Wallace Collection. Those
without knowledge affected Louis XIV., those
without morals Louis XV., and those without
minds Louis XVI. The more patriotic sought
for English examples. Those who could not
afford genuine Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam,
and the like, went in frankly for copies ; while
even those who could afford luxuries were
unwittingly supplied with reproductions in lieu
of originals."
It is, perhaps, outside the province of a book
of this nature to hold a brief for modern furniture
and furniture-makers. The furniture-maker is

quite capable of fighting his own battle. But in

all fairness itwould be simply absurd to suggest
that we should with one consent leave off design-

ing, making, selling, and buying modern furniture.

In the first place, the furniture-maker must live,
and the better his furniture the greater his claim
on life. Chippendale and Sheraton were both
makers of modern furniture in their own days.
They lived by their craft, and being master
craftsmen and designers their fame is undying.
4 OLD FURNITURE
In the second place there certainly is not enough
of the old-time furniture to go round, and, that

being the case, it is just as well that the desire to

possess it is not universal.
The mere possession of but one or two really
good albeit simple pieces of old furniture has
in itself a humanising influence. It is good to
look forward and it is good to look backwards. A
piece of old furniture to the person of even small
imagination is a lovable thing from its association,
real or imagined ; and, furthermore, it is an
educator in good taste. The man or woman who
has learnt to justly appreciate a Chippendale
cabinet, a Hepplewhite chair, or a Sheraton
side-table will scarcely go far wrong in the selection
of modern appointments for his or her rooms.
To such enlightened beings the hideosities of
the Early Victorian workshop or the still worse
atrocities of VArt Nouveau will appeal in vain.
But these books are written for the edification
of the would-be collector, of old
collector, or
furniture, and more particularly for the collector
with moderate means. We suggest that the
furniture of the period covered by this and the

preceding volume is eminently suitable for

almost all modern requirements. The strongest
evidence in favour of this theory lies in the fact
that the majority of the admittedly best furniture-
 OLD FURNITURE 5
makers of the day are employing the same materials
used by, and copying, or at least adapting, the
styles of the eighteenth-century designers. For
generations Tottenham Court Road has been
the home, or rather the temporary sojourning-
place of furniture, and, perhaps, Curtain Road
its
birthplace. The
question may be asked,
" Can
any good come out of Tottenham Court
Road ? " We answer emphatically, yes. The
very name has become a byword and a peg on
which to hang cheap witticisms. A very eminent
statesman was once severely and quite properly
censured for speaking disrespectfully of that
historic thoroughfare. Like another road, it is
paved with good intentions, and the more catholic
our taste in furniture the more likelihood of its

rendering goods compatible with those intentions.

The high prices obtained at auction during
recent years for admittedly finest specimens of
Georgian mahogany, satin, and other fancy-wood
furniture have given an impetus to the market
for the humbler grade contemporary chattels
which adorned the homes of the middle classes.
In mid- Victorian times many a fine old leather-
seated Spanish mahogany chair of simple Chippen-
dale, Hepplewhite, or Sheraton design, with a
shaky leg or weak back (which could have been
cured at the cost of a few shillings), has been
6 OLD FURNITURE
consigned to the limbo of the lumber-room and
supplanted by the horsehair upholstered suites
of light-toned mahogany or pseudo-French
walnut creations with red or green rep coverings,
which we still find in the houses of our friends
who furnished, say, before the 'eighties.
Taking the best of these Victorian productions,
little or no fault can be found with their material

or workmanship : but from an artistic standpoint

they are as dead and meaningless as the architec-

ture of the period.
The ecclesiastical architecture of the early to
mid nineteenth century is distinguished by a
"
quite appropriate name, Churchwarden." It,
and the contemporary furniture, belongs to an
age when the designing arts were moribund if
not quite dead. The cleric had long since
ceased to be an architect, and apparently felt
little interest in ecclesiastical architecture ; it was

left to the unimaginative churchwarden to raise

a purely utilitarian edifice which apparently
satisfied the no less dull-witted worshippers.
It was much the same with household furniture
and adornments.
In the eighteenth century the dwellers in
cottage homes were content with simple unpre-
tentious deal tables and chairs of beech, oak, elm,
and other homely woods of the countryside.
 OLD FURNITURE 7
With the wave of commercial prosperity, which
came with the rapid rise of the railways in the
nineteenth century, a desire for something more
pretentious overran the country, resulting in a
flood of cheap stained or veneered imitations of
that which, for want of a better name, we will
call the Churchwarden style of furniture of
the middle classes, a style which, with all its

heavy ugliness, had at least two virtues to recom-

mend it solidity and honesty. Make-believe was
the thing attempted in such goods. It was
last

quite a common proceeding for the buyer to

" in the white "
choose a suite of furniture (in
which state the least blemish in wood and work-
manship was easily discernible), and to have it

toned, polished, and upholstered to taste.

A recent visit to a " Royal Hotel " (" Estab-
lished some twenty miles from the
1840 ")
Metropolis, revealed a set of Victorian mahogany
chairs such solid proportions that seventy
of

years of life had scarcely shaken their frames.

'

They were Churchwarden," with,

frankly
perhaps, the merest reminiscent trace of late
Sheraton or Adam about them.
The cheap Victorian imitations in suites of
" six smalls, two and a sofa," stuffed at
easies,
best with flock or at worst with hay or straw,
would fall to cureless ruin in twenty years.
8 OLD FURNITURE
Even grantingtheir capacity for true appre-

ciation, the money-getters of the last generation

had little time in which to enjoy real artistic

refinements in the home. But the inevitable

effect of amassed wealth has been a levelling
up of society in the second generation. The
artistic sense has grown naturally with the
refining influences of education, and we now
find that things of a bygone age, long since
discarded or set aside as being old fashioned
and of little worth, are gradually being esteemed
at something approximative to their real artistic
values.
The lumber-rooms of town and country have,
at the bidding of the dealers' agents, disgorged
their dust-laden treasures. We
know a country
dealer, a man of great discernment, who has
a large barn crammed with more or less decrepit
specimens of mid to
late eighteenth-century

mahogany. Following out a policy of masterly

inactivity, he is in no hurry to effect the necessary

repairs and consequent sales. The supply is
limited. There is, he says, no Chippendale
Golconda, and possibly every year's delay in
restoration will add 10 per cent, to the value of
the completed article.
As a slight illustration the writer, as recently
as ten years ago, bought a beautiful piece of old
 OLD FURNITURE 9
Georgian veneered mahogany furniture, in dealer's
" A
parlance gent's robe with three drawers
under," the upper part containing sliding shelves
enclosed by two doors with finely matched

figured panels. This wardrobe was purchased

for .5 from a second-hand furniture dealer in an
Essex town. To-day it would be difficult to find
a second-hand furniture dealer. All such have
blossomed out into " dealers in antique furniture,"
who would probably ask 15 or more for a

specimen so eminently useful and ornamental.

CHAPTER POST- II:
CHIPPENDALE DESIGNERS.
CHRONOLOGICAL
IN dealing with the oak and walnut periods of
English furniture we have, for data, to rely
almost entirely upon the furniture itself. There
isnot a single name of any great craftsman or
designer which we can associate intimately with
eighteenth-century pre-Chippendale productions ;

and we are but groping in the dark when we seek

for the name of any man who made or designed
a Tudor chair or a Jacobean sideboard. Such
things are merely of the English school, and at
best we can but deduce the actual periods to
which they belong. Very often such deductions
amount almost to certainties, as in the case of
the furniture at Knole House, where the retention
of furniture, placed there at different periods,
has been in the nature of a fetish.
A
consensus of opinion assigns a certain chair
to Elizabeth's reign or another to that of James I.
or Charles II. and even Yorkshire or Derbyshire
as the birthplace. Analogy may lead us to think
that a particular form of bureau or cabinet was
made under Dutch influence, and probably
by the craftsmen who came over in the train of
10
 OLD FURNITURE n
William of Orange. The diarists of the seven-
teenth century occasionally mention purchases
of furniture sometimes even giving the cost
but do not enlighten us as to the names of the
makers or designers. An exception to the rule
may be advanced in the name of Grinling Gibbons,
who adorned some of our churches and great
houses with his inimitable carvings ; but even he
apparently essayed nothing in the nature of
household furniture more elaborate than a wall
mirror frame.
When we come to the mahogany period the
study of furniture more nearly approaches that
of an exact science. Although not the first
maker in England to publish his handiwork,
" Director " in
when Chippendale gave us his

1754 we had the first record of any great import-

ance in black and white of actualities in household
furniture.

Chippendale's is the first great name in a line

of eighteenth-century designers ending with
Sheraton and the Brothers Adam. In between,
amongst a host of smaller men, we find at least
one other great maker and designer George
Hepplewhite. Writers are generally inclined to
exclude Ince and Mayhew from the epoch-makers,
and to place them amongst those of lesser light
and leading.
12 OLD FURNITURE
It interesting to trace the growth of the
is

furniture book from such small beginnings as a

book of designs by William Jones, an architect,
published in 1739. His drawings consisted merely
of designs for mirrors and slab-tables, and
apparently left no impress on contemporary
cabinet- making. Copeland in 1746 was the
first man the furniture trade to publish a
in
book of designs, and it is well to bear in mind
that subsequent design books of the century,
all

with the one exception of that of the Brothers

Adam, were by practical cabinet-makers. So far
as the Adam publications, 1773-1822, are con-
cerned, furniture was almost a negligible quantity.
They were designers pure and simple whose ideas
were carried out by the makers of the day, in-
cluding Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and perhaps
Sheraton. The Adam influence was anything but
a negligible quantity. It commenced probably

very soon after Robert Adam returned from his

studies in Italy in 1758, and continued in full
force for a quarter of a century and in a less

degree well into the nineteenth century.

The Adam style was succeeded by that of the
"
English Empire," which may be considered as
the beginning of the decadence in English
furniture which culminated in the productions
of early to mid- Victorian times.
 OLD FURNITURE 13

Taking the post-Chippendale designers and

their books in chronological order, hard on the
heels of Chippendale, the high priest of mahogany,
who published the first edition of his
" Director "
in 1754, we have:
Ince and Mayhew's
"
The Universal System of
Household Furniture," in 1762.
R. Manwaring's "The Cabinet and Chair
Maker's Real Friend and " in
Companion
1765, and "The Chair Maker's Guide" in

1766.
Robert and James Adam's three volumes on
architecture issued in parts from 1773.
A. Hepplewhite and Co.'s
" Cabinet Maker
and Upholsterer's Guide " in 1788, with
second and third editions in 1789 and 1794.
Thomas Shearer's " Cabinet Maker's London
" in
Book of Prices 1788.
Thomas Sheraton's "The Cabinet Maker and
Upholsterer's Drawing Book" in 1791 to 1794;
"The Cabinet Dictionary" in 1803, and
" The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's
"
Encyclopaedia in 1804 to 1807.
Sheraton was the last of the historical designers
so far published works count, and for all
as

practical purposes apart from the design books

a few subsequent
"
just mentioned and Books of
Prices," compiled in the interest of masters and
i
4 OLD FURNITURE
men in the furniture trade, thereno eighteenth-
is

century literature dealing with contemporary

furniture. There is practically no record of the
hundreds of cabinet-makers who were working
side by side with Hepplewhite, Shearer, and

Sheraton, many of them no doubt as worthy of

recognition as the few who have been immortalised
by their published works.
CHAPTER III INCE AND :

MAYHEW'S "UNIVERSAL
SYSTEM" AND MANWARING'S
"CHAIR MAKER'S FRIEND"
"!N furnishingall should be with
Propriety
Elegance should always be joined with a peculiar
Neatness through the whole house, or otherwise
an immense Expence may be thrown away to
no Purpose either in Use or Appearance ; and
with the same Regard any Gentleman may furnish
asneat at a small Expence as he can elegant and
superb at a great one." These excellent senti-
ments appear in the Preface to Ince and Mayhew's
"
Universal System of Household Furniture,
as set forth in the title-page,
" of
consisting,"
above 300 Designs in the most elegant taste, both
useful and Ornamental. Finely Engraved, in
which the nature of Ornament and Perspective
is
accurately exemplified. The Whole made
convenient to the Nobility and Gentry, in their
Choice, and comprehensive to the Workman, by
directions for executing the several Designs with

Specimens of Ornament for Young Practitioners

in Drawing. By Ince and Mayhew Cabinet
Makers and Upholders in Broad Street, Golden
15
16 OLD FURNITURE
Square, London, where Every Article in the
Several Branches treated of is executed on the
most reasonable terms, with the utmost neatness
and punctuality."
The book is dedicated to the " Most Honble.
George Spencer, Duke of .Marlborough," &c. &c.
The title-page is very fittingly and elegantly
engraved by one of the joint authors, W. Ince
himself. We have quoted the title-page at some

length to show how very seriously the authors

took themselves. Doubtless the book, which is
printed in English and French side by side,
caused some stir in tjie world and did much to
enhance the reputation of the firm. We learn
from Mr. G. Owen Wheeler's admirable book,
" Old "
English Furniture (L. Upcott Gill), that
in 1781 Ince and Mayhew opened at 20 Marshall
Street and passed away in 1812. It is quite
true that Ince and Mayhew did not, so far as
we can judge by the text of their design book,
claim absolute originality in all their work, and,
" on
as Mr. Wheeler says, being Chippendale's
lines at times, it is often confounded with the

great master's creations. Owing to some little

mannerisms and items of decoration, it is fairly
easy to distinguish Mayhew and Ince's work
when they have endeavoured in any way to
vary a
Chippendale model ; but it is
distinctly difficult
 OLD FURNITURE 17
to trace some of work when they
their early
faithfully reproduced some Chippendale design,
as their carving was clean and clever and their

carcase-building excellent."
Of the three hundred designs, the bulk are
signed by Ince, and not more than a dozen by
his partner Mayhew ;
but these few are certainly
amongst the best in the book. There is an air
of charming simplicity about Plate Ix, signed by
"
Bur j airs or
Mayhew, representing a couple of
half Couches," one of which has a fall-down back.
Such a deep-seated lounge chair would be an
acquisition to any drawing-room to-day.
Plate Ixv dedicated to the Honble. Lady
"
Fludyer according to the text, expresses an
Alcove with whole side of a room described,
fitted up compleat with cushions in form of a
Turkish Soffa, a Drapery Curtain in Front, and
Girondoles on Each Side."
In Plate xxxii, Ince presents " A State Bed with
a Dome Teaster which has been executed and may
be esteemed amongst the best in England the ;

Furniture was blue Damask ; and all the Orna-

ments in burnished Gold, and richly Fringed,
the inside and outside of the Teaster are diffe-
it is drawn to an inch scale."
rently formed ; It
would thus be 9 ft. 6 in. high.
Another plate shuws the beginnings of deceit
IV B
i8 OLD FURNITURE
in the construction of furniture like Gold-
smith's

"
Chest of Drawers a double debt to
pay :

A bed by night, a chest oj drawers by day."

" A Bed
Ince's illustration represents to appear
as a Sofia with fixed canopy over it ; the curtains
draws on a Rod ;
the cheeks and seats takes off
to open the bedstead."
"
Amongst the smaller articles are Voiders,"
hand trays with fretted galleries, and
"
Encoin-
eurs," small corner shelves with the lower halves
enclosed by doors the forerunners of the
" Whatnots " of Victorian daysk These few
things are merely mentioned as giving a slight
indication of the scope as well as the interesting
nature of the book.
Figs.and 2, reproductions of " A Dome Bed "
I

and four " Back Stools " from Plates xxxii and Iv
" Universal
of the System," will show the reader
that Ince and Mayhew had not shaken off the

Chippendale conventions.
A
close study of this old design book will well

repay the student of eighteenth-century furniture.

Running so closely upon Chippendale lines it

will always be more or less a matter of speculation

when we attempt to assign any particular piece
of furniture to Ince and Mayhew. In defence
 OLD FURNITURE 19
of these artist-craftsmen,if indeed
they want
defending, it
may be advanced that all art is but

intelligent plagiarism. There is never anything

reallynew in art, and at least Ince and Mayhew
were intelligent plagiarists.
Robert Manwaring's first design book, a some-
what crude and unassuming work published in
"
1765 under the pretentious title of The Cabinet
and Chair Maker's Real Friend and Companion,"
recalls, in general style, the early work on japan-
ning of John Stalker (1688), of which we gave an
outline sketch in Volume II of the series (" The
Period of Queen Anne "). But Manwaring lacks
the ingenuousness of honest Stalker.

Speaking as mere laymen we can but think

that as a friend, philosopher, and guide Man-
waring was but a poor reed for the contemporary
chair-maker to lean upon. In his Preface he calls
attention to one of his engraved plates concerning
the Geometrical Review of Five Orders of
Columns in Classical Architecture. The columns
are, doubtless, admirably drawn and carefully
diagnosed. He
quotes Chippendale as having
advanced the axiom that without an exact
" Five "
knowledge of the Orders the furniture-
maker is a lost being :but as we look through
Manwaring's designs for chairs, stools, and settees
we fail to discover the remotest trace of any
20 OLD FURNITURE
influence derived from the alleged all-necessary
" Five Orders." It looks very much like a lame
attempt at giving a fictitious value to a book
which at the price of " IDS. 6d. sewn or 133. 6d.
bound " seems but poor value even as book
prices ruled in the middle of the eighteenth

century. We
can trace this classical pose all
through the furniture books of the period.
Possibly the writers wrote with tongue in cheek,
and we can well believe the readers did not
take them very seriously.
Manwaring's designs for Chinese and Gothic
chairs are those of Chippendale run riot. The
Chinese frets of Chippendale's chair backs are
often saved by their simplicity. Manwaring's
are eminently vulgar in their display, and the
same may be said of his Gothic creations.
He gives sundry designs for garden and summer-
house If any such indeed were
seats. made
it is matter for congratulation, on general
a

principles, that they have long since succumbed

to the rigours of the English climate. He claims
for a series of chair backs with simple slats of
vertical ribbon-wor that
" are entirely
:
They
new and useful and are calculated for People
in all stations of Life." These chair backs with
Cupid's-bow tops, slats retaining the vase outline,
and side-posts with the outward turn, are all
 OLD FURNITURE 21

in the spirit of Chippendale, and any such pieces

cropping up to-day would undoubtedly be
described as
"
Chippendale."
A "
second work, The Chair Maker's Guide,"
" R.
by Manwaring, cabinet maker, and others,"
published in 1766, and printed by Robert Sayer
at the Golden Buck near Serjeant's Inn, Fleet

Street, contains upwards of two hundred engrav-

ings on seventy-five copper plates. The subjects
illustrated are almost exclusively chairs, and there
is no
explanatory text. An original copy in the
South Kensington Museum Library contains the
book-plate of Horace Walpole, who was probably
the most notable virtuoso of his day. Bound
" The second
up in the same cover is edition
of genteel Household furniture in the present
taste with an addition of several articles never
before executed by a Society of Upholsterers
Cabinet Makers &c. containing upwards of
350 designs on 120 copper plates, consisting of
China, Breakfast, Sideboard, Dressing, Toilet,
Card, Writing, Claw, Library, Slab, and Night
Tables," and a long list of etceteras, finishing up
with Fretts, Fenders, Balconies, and Signs.
Although Manwaring's name does not appear
on the title-page, we can take it for granted that
"
he is one of the Society," seeing that the first
twenty-eight designs are identical with those
22 OLD FURNITURE
published under his own name. We have yet to
learn the names of the other contributors. Some
writers, amongst them Mr. Clouston, trace the
hand of Ince in some of the designs. Sheraton
" " stfme
in his Drawing Book twenty-five years
later makes disparaging remarks concerning this
book of designs, and sweepingly asserts that
"
the dissertation on the Five Orders of Columns
"

isthe only original matter therein. He suggests

that the teachers stand in some need of instruc-
tion, whereas, on the other hand, Chippendale's
" from which he, Sheraton, declares
Director,"
Manwaring helped himself, was an entirely original
work. Such recriminations were much in vogue,
and probably were meant and taken " in the
Pickwickian sense." But in this particular
instance we can scarcely quarrel with Sheraton's
strictures.
In turning over the pages of Chippendale's
"
Director," which reached its third edition
in 1754, we feel that we are in touch with a

great furniture-designer, whilst the work of

Manwaring eleven years later is but a travesty,
and a
poor travesty at that.
Quite apart from the designs, the book is
interesting to the student. In the Preface
Manwaring makes some references to the woods
"
used. Plates 16 and 17 are four genteel
 OLD FURNITURE 23
Designs for Ladies' Dressing Chairs and may be
executed in mahogany or Lime Tree ... if the
seat rails are lime tree they may be cut out of the
solid stuff, if
mahogany may be glued on the
front of the rail or if the work is narrow and brass-
nailed with double rows then it may be glued on
the lower edge of the Back Rail and blocked in
at the inside."
"
Referring to his Very Magni-
ficent and Superb Designs for French Settee
"
Chairs," they may be executed either in Lime
Tree or Yellow Deal." With "Back Stools
. . the backs are generally squared in beech."
.

All this rather points to the fact that mahogany

was still
expensive although Walpole had removed
the import tax.
It would not serve any very useful purpose in
this book dealing mainly with the Sheraton period
and styles to reproduce a series of Manwaring's
designs. It may be interesting to note that
rustic garden furniture is not an invention of
the present age. Manwaring tells us his designs
may be executed in natural limbs of trees.
The two 4, photo-
illustrations, Figs. 3 and
graphed from Manwaring's book of 1765, Hall
"
Chairs and Summer-House Chairs, may point
a moral
" even if they do not " adorn a tale."
CHAPTER IV HEPPLEWHITE :

AND THE GUIDE "

GEORGE HEPPLEWHITE, who at some time during
his career was in business in the parish of St. Giles,
Cripplegate, made furniture from 1760. He died
in 1786. His widow, Alice, and partners, under
the style of A. Hepplewhite and Co., published
" The Cabinet Maker and "
Upholsterer's Guide
in 1788. The dates on the engraved plates
range from July to October 1787. A second and
third edition followed in 1789 and 1794.
The title-page reads: "The Cabinet Maker
and Upholsterer's Guide or a repository of
:

designs for every article of household furniture

in the newest and most approved taste displaying
a great variety of
patterns for chairs, stools,
sofas, confidantes," &c. &c. Forty-seven forms
of furniture are mentioned. The Preface suggests
"
To unite elegance and utility
(inter alia) that
and blend the useful with the agreeable, has ever
been considered a difficult, but an honourable
task." Very honourably Hepplewhite accom-
plished the task.
Whilst Ince and Mayhew and Manwaring were
still
Chippendale's designs we find
plagiarising
Hepplewhite striking out with independent ideas.
24
 OLD FURNITURE 25
This independence is
perhaps more noticeable
in his chair backs, which are generally heart or
shield shaped ; occasionally the shield is inverted
as in Fig. 33. The
demi-shield, as in Figs. 22
to 25, is known the "camel back," from the
as

hump in the centre. This camel-back top is

often found quite independent of the shield,
being supported by more or less perpendicular
posts. The camel back, indeed, is almost a
distinctive feature of
Hepplewhite chairs, although
not purely an invention of Hepplewhite. We
" "
trace in it a reminiscence of the Cupid bow
top of the Chippendale school. If we take at
random dozen Cupid-bow chairs of the Chip-
a

pendale period we shall find they vary considerably

at the outer corners, some having a distinctly

upward turn and others a downward curve.

In the latter case we find the outline growing
much hand grasp of the bow gradually
simpler, the
disappearing, and in its place we have one

simple curve. And so we find as far back as the

Chippendale period by easy stages the Cupid

bow had degenerated into the camel back, the
feature so freely adopted by Hepplewhite.
The graceful backs of Hepplewhite's chairs
gave plenty of scope for low relief carved decora-
tion, and we find exquisite designs consisting
of small classical vases and festoons of drapery.
26 OLD FURNITURE
The strands of the pierced backs are often
interlaced with carved ribbon work.
On
one plate in the Hepplewhite design book
we find a chair with an oval back filled in with
splats consisting of boldly carved leaves two
" "
Roman leaves enclosing three rippling palm
(or perhaps iris) leaves. Another oval back is
filled in with Prince of Wales's ostrich plumes tied

with a bold knot of ribbons. At the bottom of

the oval frame is a shell ornament. Plate 10 in the
" " shows two stuffed
Guide referred
arm-chairs,
to in the text as follows :
" Chairs with stuffed
backs are called Cabriole Chairs ... of the newest
fashion the arms though much higher than
. . .

usual have been executed with a good effect for

his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales." The
top of the frame is surmounted by the three
ostrich plumes.
"
In this case the term cabriole
"

is
slightly misleading ; but in another illustration
of a stuffed chair we have distinct cabriole legs
with French scrolled feet resting on circular
thimbles or turned pegs.
Hepplewhite's hall chair backs consist of oval
shields and, in one case, a classic urn in fairly

high relief a most uncomfortable resting-place

for the back of any person awaiting audience.
The legs of Hepplewhite's chairs and seats

are usually square in section, either straight or

 OLD FURNITURE 27
tapering (more often the latter), occasionally
fluted or reeded. The legs sometimes terminate
in sharply tapering feet, known as thimble toes.
It is
generally conceded that the earlier produc-
tions of Hepplewhite are square-legged, but a great
number of chairs and settees dating from about
1775 and onwards have turned legs and arm-posts.
The Hepplewhite book would be no actual

guide as to dates, as it was published after George

Hepplewhite's death. A
particularly graceful
turned detail in the arm-posts is noticeable in the
shape of a slender vase or amphora, which may be
seen in the settee (Fig. 19). This detail will also
be found in a Sheraton illustration (Fig. 92).
It was in fact much used in Sheraton and Adam
furniture.
It scarcely safe to generalise concerning
is

characteristic details in furniture of a particular

maker, seeing that a constant ebb and flow

and overlapping is noticeable all through its

history.
There one point in the detail of the work-
is

manship of the period under discussion which is

very noticeable. We find on the chairs of the
Chippendale School that the back frames and
arms, when not practically flat, are carved in
relief on hand-worked more or less concave
surfaces. When we arrive at the Hepplewhite
28 OLD FURNITURE
period we find the grooving and reeding plane
coming into use. In fact, it is
quite evident
that with the increasing demand for furniture
such labour-saving appliances became absolute
necessities. The decoration of a Chippendale
chair back, to say nothing of the cabriole legs,
would be worked entirely with the carver's
chisel. Chippendale's was the school of free
chisel play. In the average Hepplewhite chair,
although we shall generally find the decoration
on the splats worked up with the chisel, the
top rail and side-posts will probably be deeply
channelled and have beaded edges. The legs,
if not quite plain and square or simply turned,
will be worked up by the aid of reeding or
grooving planes.
In the Furniture and Woodwork Section of
the Victoria and Albert Museum the student
will find an interesting collection of wood-
workers' tools, such as chisels, screw-drivers,
gauges, routers,and planes. They are all dated
specimens, ranging from 1723 to the end of the
century. The piece is a trying plane.
earliest

A moulding plane bears date 1734. The wooden

parts of these planes and other tools are all
more or less ornamented with carvings, and
have probably been chosen for that reason as
well as for the dates they bear. We can hardly
 OLD FURNITURE 29
think they fully represent the equipment of the

eighteenth-century bench.
At the same time it is quite possible, in fact
highly probable, that the cabinet-maker made
many of his minor tools himself as occasion arose.
The ingenuity of wood-worker is pro-
the
verbial. A
small piece of mild steel cut to shape

by the aid of a file, sharpened, and then fixed in

a gauge will make a
reeding plane practically
as effective as anything turned out by the
professional toolmaker. Such handy makeshifts
would not have been preserved as curiosities.
We have often heard it said that the successful
faker of old furniture not only employs old wood,
but copies the old-time workman's tools to get
the correct effect. We
merely mention this, in
passing, as thereno chapter on fakes in this or
is

the preceding volumes of the series. The collector

must rely upon his own innate judgment, if he
happily possesses it, or, if he has it not, acquire
it by patient study. In the meantime he must,
in purchasing, rely upon the integrity of the seller
or back his own opinion and take his chance. We
once read a book which set out to be a guide in
the direction of identification of things antique.
The of the advice was
"
gist compare those
things you possess with undoubted specimens in
the museums and draw your own conclusions."
3o OLD FURNITURE
This the simplest of simple advice, and we
is

scarcely want an angel from heaven or Fleet

Street to impart it.
There is
happy touch about one of
a very

Hepplewhite's plates illustrating a wing chair

and a "gouty stool" (see Fig. 5), reminiscent of
the port wine and good living of the period. The

top of the stool can be elevated to any angle

by means and ratchet. The wing chair
of a slide

represents acme
the of comfort. The high
stuffed wings spring from outside the rolled arms.
This draught-excluding seat, restful to the head,
back, and arms, in conjunction with the stool,
would reduce gout to something in the nature
of a luxury. We have recently seen such a chair
of the period we say a chair, but there was
littlebut the frame, some old horsehair, and a
few rags of canvas which the owner was willing
to re-upholster and deliver complete for 8.

From a sentimental point of view it would be

good to have such a chair, as it came from
Hepplewhite's hands ;
but an accumulation of
germs of a century and a quarter might be an
unwelcome addition to the home.
Hepplewhite's illustrations of small stools show
some with cabriole legs and French scrolled
feet, others with slightly curved legs, and again
others with straight tapering legs and thimble
 OLD FURNITURE 31
toes. In these striped horsehair coverings are
much affected. His window stools have straight
legs and gracefully scrolled ends to the seats.
"
Confidantes," about nine feet in length, consist
of a sofa with a corner seat at either end, sometimes
so constructed that the end pieces take away,

leaving a regular sofa, and themselves forming

two independent " Burjier " chairs.
The " Duchesse," he says, is " also derived
from the French. Two Burjier chairs of proper
construction, with a stool in the middle, form
a Duchesse, 6 to 8 feet long." In the Duchesse
he illustrates, the Burjier at one end is consider-
ably larger than its vis-a-vis, the complete
structure having somewhat the appearance of a

huge slipper.
In his instructions Hepplewhite says,
" Maho-

gany chairs should have seats of horsehair, plain,

striped,chequered at pleasure." He also gives
the dimensions of chairs : width from 20 inches,

depth of seat 17 inches, height of seat from

17 inches, and total height 37 inches.

Fig. 6 illustrates two window stools from the

" Guide." The one with valance is almost
draped
identical with one at the Soane Museum ascribed
to Robert Adam. The same decorations will
be found on the fine shield-back chair at South
Kensington Museum (see Fig. 32).
32 OLD FURNITURE
Amongst minor articles some
are knife-cases,
with sloping tops and serpentine fronts and
others in the form of classic urns from which
the tops rise by aid of springs on central pillars.
Oval and " called also
octagonal Cellarets, gardes
de vin, generally made of mahogany and hooped
with brass hoops lacquered. The inner part is
divided with partitions and lined with lead for
bottles."
In the explanatory text of Hepplewhite's
" Guide " we find a reference to two plates
illustrating the complete appointment of a room.
"
Having gone through a complete series or suit
of Household Furniture we were strongly advised
to draw out a plan which should show the mannei
of properly disposing of the same with this :

mtent aided by the advice of some experienced

friends we here shew, at one view, the necessary
and proper furniture for a Drawing-room and
also for a Dining-room or Parlour, subject to
the following variations : If the object of this

plan was a Drawing-room only on each side

the Chimney-piece there should be a sofa, and on
the opposite side instead of a sofa, should be a
confidante the sideboard also should be removed,
:

and an elegant commode substituted in the place ;

the remaining space may be filled up with chairs.

For a Dining-room, instead of pier tables, should
 OLD FURNITURE 33
be a set of dining tables ; the rest of the furniture
and the general ordonnance of the room is equally
proper, except the glass over the sofa^ which might
be omitted : but this is a mere opinion, many of
the Dining Parlours of our first nobility having
full asmuch glass as here shown. The proper
furniture for a drawing-room, and for a dining-
room or parlour, being thus pointed out, it
remains only to observe, that the general ap-
pearance of the latter should be plain and neat,
while the former, being considered a State-room,
should possess all the elegance imbellishments
can give."
This is more than a sidelight. It is a whole
row of footlights turned full on to a picture of
the period. We
do not know if any enterprising
collector of to-day has taken the hint and fur-
nished his dining-room or drawing-room purely
on the linesdown by Hepplewhite. It
laid
would probably be an expensive affair although
anything but an impossible one.
The Hepplewhite room as illustrated in the
" Guide " is too
large to reproduce in this volume.
A brief description may convey some idea to the
reader. Taking the four sides in rotation we have ?

No. I. A sofa in centre, flanked by six oval-

backed chairs, three on either side ;
a very
IV C
34 OLD FURNITURE
large wall mirror, flanked by two small ones
with candle sconces.
No. 2 (opposite). Fireplace in centre, with
three more of the chairs each side and two
more small mirrors with sconces.
No. 3. Two doors, between them a sideboard,
flanked by two pedestals on the sideboard
;

two vase-shaped knife-boxes, and over it

another large mirror with three two-light
sconces
; more chairs.
four
No. 4 (opposite). Four windows with draped
cornices under each window is a window
;

seat with tapering legs and scroll ends ; three

large mirrors between the windows, and under
each mirror is a half-round table. Two more
chairs.

The chairs (eighteen in all) have stuffed

oval backs, stuffed seats, and cabriole legs. The
couch, en suite , is very much after the style
of Fig. 7, and on it a striped horsehair covering
is
plainly indicated.
We can only hope that at some time in the near
future the authorities at the Victoria and Albert
Museum may see their way towards giving us
Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Adam rooms com-
plete. Two long-promised Georgian Rooms,
with pine-panelled walls of fine quality and
 OLD FURNITURE 35
appropriate furniture, have recently been added to
the collection. We can also find more than one

Oak-period room in the English Section as well

as old French and Swiss rooms in the Conti-
nental Section. Apart from the two Georgian
Rooms,the mahogany period of English furniture is
represented by a chaotic agglomeration of speci-
mens mostly fine and in some cases quite
priceless disarranged in such a manner as
to do little more than bewilder the student.
We say this at the risk of being accused of
churlishness, but we would fully acknowledge
the courtesy and help which has been freely
afforded by the directors and their assistants in
the Woodwork Section of the museum. Perhaps
Mr. Guy Laking may also take the hint and fit
out some representative rooms in the London
Museum at Kensington Palace.
The following seven examples are chosen from
the
" Guide " as exhibiting salient features of
the Hepplewhite furniture.
Fig. 8 is a graceful sideboard with three
drawers and two It would obviously
cellarets.

have six legs

(reeded and ending in thimble toes),
but the rear legs are not shown in the engraving.
Hepplewhite is sometimes at fault in his per-
" "
spective, and Sheraton in his Drawing Book
unkindly calls attention to the fact.
36 OLD FURNITURE
Fig. 9, a sideboard of rectangular build, shows
distinct Adam influence in the fluting and vase
ornament. Hepplewhite and Co. probably made
such a piece for an Adam House, and afterwards
put it in the design book. By the scale given it
measures 7 ft. in width.
" Double
Fig. 10, a Chest of Drawers,*' or,
as we should to-day describe it, a tallboy, calls

for no special remark. It is

just such a simple
piece as would be turned out by any furniture
maker of the period. When we meet with such
a tallboy built of mahogany unadorned with
inlays and lined with cedar, owing to its very
simplicity we instinctively call it Hepplewhite.
By the scale given on the engraving it would be
4 ft. wide and a little over 6 ft. high.
Fig. II, a "Desk and Bookcase," shows a
survival of Chippendale in the shaped bracket
feet. The perfect simplicity of outline must
have appealed to people of good taste in Hepple-
white's day, and we can well believe that many
such were made and have survived.
"
Fig. 12, a Library Case," by the scale given is
12 ft. 6 in. long and 8 ft. 6 in. high (to the top
of the cornice), and has Adam decoration written
all over it.
"
Fig. 13, a Design for a Bed," is delightfully
simple for the period, and even to-day with
 OLD FURNITURE 37
scrupulous care and frequent spring cleaning
might be considered tolerably hygienic.
" Bed
Fig. 14, Pillars," should help the reader
to identify Hepplewhite bedsteads. Such bed-
posts have of recent years been sacrificed in
hundreds for making up into lamp and flower-pot
stands. Four-posters with such finely designed
pillars, ifcomplete and in good condition, have
a market value of about thirty pounds ; whilst
the pillars when converted into lamp standards
would scarcely realise more than two or three
pounds apiece.
Bedroom furniture as depicted in the Hepple-
white guide eminently suitable for present-day
is

requirements. The four-poster with its draperies

may not be a pattern of hygiene ; neither is a
brass bedstead made in Birmingham if it is not
kept scrupulously clean. The housewife who is
particular in the treatment of the latter will not
grudge the extra care necessary with the former.
"
The eighteenth-century standing
tallboy,"
$ ft. 6 in. to 6 ft. objected to on
high, may be
the score of its unwieldiness, particularly as the
small drawers which contain the odds and ends
in daily use are above the sight line, and it is

necessary for a person of

average height to
stand on a chair to reach them. The Hepplewhite
short chest of five drawers with bow or serpentine
38 OLD FURNITURE
front is as perfect as anything of the nature
which can be built to-day, and no less can be said
of the dressing-tables of the period. The corner
washstand errs on the side of skimpiness, but is a
dainty detail in the room, especially if
little

fitted
up with an old Spode blue and white,
Mason or Davenport Ironstone ware ewer and
basin, which would be, within a few years,
contemporary with the stand. In any case the
washstand is but a side issue, since people have
acquired the habit of performing their ablutions
outside their sleeping apartments. As to chairs
well, a chair is a chair all the world over, whether
built in the reign of George the Third or George
the Fifth.
Lack of space precludes more than two illus-
trations of the heavier Hepplewhite bedroom
furniture.

Fig. 15 represents a bow-fronted mahogany

chest of four drawers with an inlaid shell ornament
on the plinth. It belongs to a period, about

1775, when satin wood inlays were used very

sparingly in the form of stringings and small
ornaments. The shaped stand is a typical
feature of these bow-fronted structures, and the

shaped feet are a logical development, in the

direction of simplicity, of the brackets of the

Chippendale period.
 OLD FURNITURE 39
Fig. 1 6 is of serpentine form, but in this
case the stand is in no way a separate structure,
the curved feet being continuations of the sides.
Fig. 17 illustrates a remarkably fine Hepple-
white wardrobe with matched oval panels of
beautifully figured mahogany veneer outlined
with bands of herring-bone inlay, which are
repeated in the drawer fronts. The dentil
cornice and bracket feet are reminiscent of earlier

Georgian times. The photograph of this speci-

men, valued at 35, is lent by Mr. F. W. Phillips,
of Hitchin, together with Figs. 19 and 20.

Fig. 1 8,a singularly pleasing sideboard, is the

property of Mr. J. H. Springett, of Rochester, who

values it at 20. It has a central drawer, two
drawers at one end, and a deep cellaret at the
opposite end, made outwardly to match the
drawers. The front is slightly curved, with a

pleasing diversity of line, and the top edge is

reeded. The depressed arch supporting the
centre gives strength without any appearance of
heaviness.

Fig. 19 is a Hepplewhite settee, date about

1780, valued at 20. The legs and uprights
to the arms are turned and reeded. The vase
detail in the arm-post is particularly good and the
seat is upholstered in the original silk brocade.

Fig. 20 is a caned settee with squab cushion.

40 OLD FURNITURE
The middle parts of the arm-posts exhibit fine
spiral turnery, which will be found repeated in
Xhe next illustration.

Fig. 21 is a child's swinging cot with caned body

and hood. The cot is suspended by iron supports,
and can be kept at a standstill by two forked
battens which slide from the under side of the cot
at either end. The framework and posts of spiral
turnery are built of solid mahogany. This cot has
been used with perfect success by a present-day
baby. It was bought for 5 .

"
Fig. 22 is a caned Burgere chair (" Burjier
of the old design books) reproduced from a photo

supplied by Mr. Reginald Flint, of 7 Featherstone

Buildings, High Holborn.
Fig. 23 represents a finely designed painted
chair with caned seat, much in the style of

Hepplewhite. This and the next illustration are

furnished by Mr. C. J. Charles.

Fig. 24 is a fine example of the painted

(" japanned ") furniture of the period. It is

one of four chairs painted yellow. The oval

medallions on the vase-shaped splats are decorated
with classical subjects much in the style of
Angelica Kauffmann.
In assigning positive ascriptions to such pieces
as the two last mentioned we are treading on

dangerous ground. Fig. 23 has indeed in its

 OLD FURNITURE 41
rectangular form much in common with chair
"
backs which we shall find in Sheraton's Drawing
" The vase ornament
Book (see Figs. 49 to 51).
in Fig.24 is altogether too heavy for anything we
should expect from Sheraton, but the shaping
of the arms would rather point to the later
Sheraton period.
Cane-work as applied to English furniture had
a considerable vogue during late Stuart times,
but very much into abeyance during the
fell

first half of the eighteenth century. During the

late Jacobean period, with the introduction of
walnut wood, we find a tendency to lightness
in the seating accommodation. The type of
chair known as the " whilst still
Charles,"
retaining the quite flat horizontal seat and
practically perpendicular back of the oak period,
is a featherweight article in comparison with its

predecessor. The caned seat and narrow caned

panel in the high back, flanked by slender posts
and topped by fanciful foliated carving embellished
with crowns and cupids, all make for lightness.

The spirit of this work continued to a certain

extent into the time of William and Mary,
until the Dutch
influence got the upper hand.
We occasionally meet with tall-backed Queen
Anne chairs with caned panels. But with the
introduction of the true Queen Anne type of
4.2 OLD FURNITURE
curvilinear roomy seats the cane-work seems to
have almost disappeared and to have remained
dormant during the early part of the mahogany
period, till the time, in fact, when the furniture
ceased to develop on Queen Anne lines.
Although there seems to be something incon-
gruous in the juxtaposition of dark heavy maho-
gany and cane-work, we yet find a few Chippen-
dale caned seats. Leather, horsehair, and tapestries
seem to be the natural concomitants of old dark
mahogany as turned out by Chippendale and
Hepplewhite. It was left to the Sheraton School,
in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
to reintroduce cane-work with perfect success,
in conjunction with satinwood and japanned
woods. One begins to wonder what became of
the skilled cane-worker in the interim. Did he,
likethe swallow of the countryside myth, dis-
appear into the limbo of the village horse-pond
with the first touch of autumn chill, to emerge

again with the first gleam of mid- April sun ?

" Cabinet "
Sheraton in his Dictionary (1803)
" cabinet work is now more in use
says, Caning
than it was ever known to be at any former
period. About thirty years since it was gone
quite out of fashion, partly owing to the imperfect
manner in which it was executed. But on the
revival of japanning furniture it began to be
 OLD FURNITURE 43
gradually brought into use." He describes the
different methods used and the various appli-
cations to bedstead &c.
" The
chairs, ends,
commonest kind one skain only, called by
of
caners bead-work, and runs open ; others of it
is of two skains, and is closer and firmer. The
best work, termed bordering, is of three skains,
some of which is done very fine and close, with
the skains less than a sixteenth broad, so that
it is worked as fine, comparatively, as some
canvas."
Sheraton uses the word " japanning
" in
quite
a different sense to that in which it was used in the
seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when it
stood for lacquering, more or less in the Oriental

style. In Sheraton's time japanning has come to

mean practically any surface painting of furniture
made from ordinary woods, such as pine or beech,
as distinguished from brushwork adornments to
fancy woods, such as mahogany and satinwood.
There are no examples of caned furniture shown
in the design books of Manwaring, Ince, Hepple-
white, or Sheraton.
Probably nothing in the way of Sheraton
period furniture is so easily distinguishable as a

Hepplewhite The following examples

chair.
show the salient features :

Fig. 25 would, on account of the wheatear

44 OLD FURNITURE
decoration, be classed by some discriminating
collectors as a Shearer production. Arm-chairs
of this calibre with let-in seats have an average
value of about five to six pounds, whilst the
" "
singles would fetch from fifty to sixty shillings
" " " "
apiece. Sets of six singles and two arms
are by no means uncommon, and are always more
valuable in proportion to odd specimens.

Fig. 26 is a type of the country-made oak,

Hepplewhite design. These
hoop-backed chair of
have an average value of from thirty to forty
shillings.

Fig. 27 represents a simple mahogany arm-chair

of the Hepplewhite school and period. It was
bought in mid-Devon, carefully restored and
re-upholstered in appropriate green and white
striped horsehair. The total cost was 2. The
five splats have beaded edges. The seat is shallow
with serpentine front.
Fig. 28 is a shield-back arm-chair in mahogany
with Prince of Wales's plume decoration in the
pierced splat. came from North
This chair
Ockenden Hall, Essex, where it had stood for

many years until some twenty-four years ago.

It is still in the possession of a member of the

family of the original owner.

Fig. 29 shows distinct Adam influence in the
draped vase ornament on the splats. It is highly
 OLD FURNITURE 45
probable that Robert Adam was answerable for
the introduction of the shield back into English
chairs.

Fig. 30, a fine single chair with let-in seat, has

the Prince of Wales's ostrich plumes on the pierced

splat. The serpentine seat and moulded legs are

departures from the earlier and simpler con-
ventions. about twelve guineas.
It has a value of

Photographs of this and the previous figure are

lent by Mr. F. W. Phillips.
Fig. 31, a walnut arm-chair at the Victoria
and Albert Museum, is also carved with the
ostrich feathers. The seat has a modern covering
of red moreen fastened with brass - headed
nails.

It will be noticed that the last seven examples

have square legs and straining-rails. The front

straining-rails are morticed into the side-rails, and

thus placed a few inches back from the front
legs. In the earlier types transitional from

Queen Anne to Early Georgian these straining-

rails will be found morticed into the front
legs and are very much in the way of the sitter's

heels, although useful at times as rests for the

feet in draughty rooms.
Fig. 32, an exceptionally fine example at the
Victoria and Albert Museum (official number

1458, 1904), was bought for ten guineas in 1904

46 OLD FURNITURE
which sum in no way represents its
present
"
value. The catalogue description reads Arm-
chair of carved walnut. Style of Hepplewhite.
English : late eighteenth century.
(The covering
is modern.) 3 ft.high, 24 in. wide.
^\ in. Con-
cave oval back, carved in open work, with three
ostrich feathers amid bands and festoons of

drapery ; the border is inlaid with shells separated

by bands and grooves. The curved arms are
continuous with the front legs, which (like the
back legs) are fluted and tapering and terminate
in rounded feet. There are no stretchers."
This chair shows distinct Adam influence in the

groovings, flutings, and fan ornaments.

Fig. 33, an example of the inverted shield, has
a value of about 20. The carved rosettes on the
fronts of the arms with the same motif repeated
in oval form at the tops of the tapering fluted

legs, all lend distinction to a piece of exceptionally

fine mahogany furniture, which the owner assigns
to an approximate date 1770.
As might be expected, following on the principle
laid down in the Queen Anne and Chippendale

periods, these shield backs will be found repeated

in the settees. We find double, treble, and
" three chair
quadruple back settees, but the
"
back is the most usual form.
CHAPTER V: SHEARER AND
"THE BOOK OF PRICES"
THE of
" Cabinet Maker's
the
compilation
London Book of Prices " is
usually attributed
to Thomas Shearer, and that with considerable

reason, judging from internal evidence, although

there is no author's name attached.
The first edition was published in 1788 and the
" with It was
second, additions," in 1793.
printed for the London Society of Cabinet
Makers, and Hepplewhite and Shearer were
both members of the Society. It contains

twenty-nine plates engraved on copper. Nos. I

to 14 and 17 to 20 are signed by T. Shearer.
Nos. 15 and 16, consisting of a series of tracery
designs for cabinet doors, are unsigned. Nos. 26
and 27, also consisting of cabinet window tracery,
are, curiously enough, signed by Casement. W.
Nos. 21 to 25 and 29 are simply signed " Hepple-
white." As these plates were engraved two
years after George Hepplewhite's death, they were
probably the work of a son or other relative.
The designs in some cases are distinctly reminis-
cent of late Chippendale productions. The first

plate in the book represents a break- front writing-

desk, 6 ft. long and 8 ft. high. We give a
47
48 OLD FURNITURE
reproduction of this in Fig. 34, photographed from
the book. It will be seen that the writing-slab

(upright when closed) is

supported on metal
quadrants and discloses, when open, an array of
pigeon-holes and stationery cases. The right-
and left-hand halves of the engraving show
alternate designs, a method often followed in
the design books of the period. In this instance
the left-hand half of the picture shows fan-

shaped and medallion details in the cornice,

pointing, to distinct Adam influence.

Fig. reproduced
35, from
Plate 2 in the
"Book of Prices," shows a knee-hole library table of
serpentine outline and a simple bow-fronted
sideboard. We shall have occasion to refer ta
this sideboard in the Sheraton section of the
book.
We can hardly believe that Sheraton had any
" Book of
hand in the compilation of the Prices."
He praises it somewhat grudgingly in his own
book some three years afterwards and we may ;

be quite sure if it had contained any of his

handiwork he would have proclaimed the fact
from the housetops.
Mr. G. Owen Wheeler says, " Shearer is
usually described as the Apostle of Sheraton :
in reality he was a pioneer whom the latter
followed."
 OLDFURNITURE 49
In one of the Shearer plates we find an ingenious
shut-up dressing-table, containing three mirrors
and four drawers for toilet requisites. It is
quite a multum in parvo article of furniture,
foreshadowing the very ingenious and even more
elaborate pieces of a few years later. In this piece,
perhaps for the first time, we find the application
of the tambour, or rolling shutter, enclosing the
small cupboard space, underneath the dressing-
table. We also find the tambour in Hepple-
white's design book published in the same year.
A dainty design is also given for a writing-table

of slender proportions, with a tambour shutter

on top (Fig. 36). We
have recently seen a very
similar writing-table with tambour top enclosing

pigeon-holes and drawers, which rise and fall

on a spring fitting. It was described as a Sheraton
production ;
we cannot find it in Sheraton's
but as
" ec
Drawing Book," and we do find it in the Book
of Prices," signed by Shearer, we can only

rightly think of it as being a Shearer production.

also illustrates a tambour-top
Hepplewhite
writing-table ;
but it is of rather more solid
proportions. Instead of the tambour curving

right over, disappears under a flat shelf at

it

the back of the table. On the same plate with

Shearer's tambour writing-table are two other
slender writing-tables (see also Fig. 36).
IV D
5o OLD FURNITURE
Shearer also signs a plate representing a

dainty composite article, viz. a fire-screen with

fall-down front, which when open forms a
writing-table and discloses an array of pigeon-
holes, drawers, and stationery cases tucked away
in the four inches of depth. This would doubtless
be charming drawing-room or boudoir accessory,
a

but is
altogether too unstable for serious work.
Plate 21 (in the second edition) signed by

Hepplewhite, October 5, 1792, represents a

handsome writing-table with the pigeon-holes

ranged on top in the form of a shallow horseshoe ;

and if we refer to Sheraton's " Drawing Book,"

we find the almost identical thing under date

January 16, 1793, with the addition of a brass

gallery and other minor details of ornament. It
looks suspiciously like a case of cribbing on the

part of Sheraton. Sheraton's edition of this

table will be found in Fig. 47.

Amongst the Hepplewhite contributions to

the
" Book of "
Prices are a serpentine-fronted
cabinet of fine elevation, a large assortment of

mouldings, standards for tripods, and therms

for claws ; the last named mostly of the thimble-
toe order. Shearer illustrates dressing-tables and
minor pieces of bedroom furniture, including small
corner washstands with circular holes for basins
of small proportions. Some of these stands have
 OLD FURNITURE 51

open shelves and others enclosed fronts. Some

have hinged splash-boards, which fold down
when not in use. We also find small portable
shut-up desks, which form writing slopes when
opened the precursors of the desks presented
to little boys and girls on their birthdays a

generation ago.
Certain chairs of the period, bearing the
'

general characteristics of Hepplewhite design,

when ornamented with the wheatear or rippling
leaf of the great water-reed, are often ascribed
to Thomas Shearer. That is as it may be,
" London Book of Prices " does not
but the
contain a chair of any sort or description. It
would be rash to argue from this fact that
Shearer did not make chairs. He would scarcely
have left all the chair-making to his contem-
poraries.
The reader may ask the raison d'etre of this
collaboration on the part of Shearer and others.
The " Cabinet Maker's London Book ot
" no actual description of
Prices gives any of
the articles illustrated, but contains some
hundred or complete estimates of piece-work
so

wages making various articles of furniture.

for
These estimates are worked out in a manner
which must have been very helpful to the trade.
It must be remembered that the book was not
52 OLD FURNITURE
compiled for the benefit of the retail buyer, but
simply as a guide to the master cabinet-maker in
the production of furniture then in fashion.

Briefly the method employed is to give the

price ofmaking the article in its
simplest form,
and then addenda consisting of a long list of

extras. For example :

" A Corner Bason Stand.

" The ends one foot three inches from front
to front, one real and two sham drawers, with
course round ditto, two holes for cups, the top
rail scalloped, or to sham a drawer, veneered

front, i$s. od.

" Extras :

" Each inch more or

less, 3^.
" Each extra sham
drawer, 4^.
"
Cock-beading the drawer, or sham ditto,
extra from string, i^d.
" the wash-boards to
Making fold down,
is. 6d.
" An extra cup-hole, i\d.
"
Cutting out the bason hole, 4^.
" If enclosed between the bottom rails with
two doors in front, and one ditto with sham
on each side, 8j.
" If ditto made with reed
is doors in front,
$s. 6d.
u
Oiling and polishing, 6d."
 OLD FURNITURE 53
We may thus get an approximate estimate of
the original prime cost of the workmanship in the
little corner washstand as illustrated in Fig.
74
of this volume ; say i^s. It may interest the
reader to know that it was bought for I2s. 6d.

(less than the original cost of the labour) at a

country furniture-broker's shop about seven

years ago. It had during recent years been
covered with hedge-sparrow blue enamel paint.
That removed, it stands in almost original
freshness.

Amongst the smaller articles we find estimates

for making Dumb Waiters, 4^. ;
Plate Carriers,
13^.; Knife Trays, 6d.; Table Desks, 2s. 6d.
2s.

or 4J. 6d. fitted; Dispensary Cases from i$s. to

2js. 6d. To all these must be added small lists

of extras.
The inside "
Screen Dressing-Glass Frame.
of the glass two feet six inches long, one foot
six inches wide, the back fram'd with four flat

panels, the weights cast by the plumber, claws,

and common castors, i is. od. If made to

swing, and not to rise, 6s. less."

Shaving Stands, ^i is. ditto with canted

;

corners, .1 js. ditto with

;
hollow corners,
i us. ; round, 2 $s.
ditto, half
" "
Various bedsteads, such as Press," Table,"
" Toilet " "
Table," Bureau," and Library Press,"
54 OLD FURNITURE
are estimated at from i8s. to ^3 iSs. The book
unfortunately does not illustrate these articles
of deception. It would be interesting to see
u Toilet Table
Shearer's idea of a Bedstead."
It is understand the desire for a piece
difficult to
of furniture to serve as a bed by night and to
look like a toilet-table
by day ! A bookcase
bedstead would be comprehendable in a bachelor's

apartment.
Knee-Hole Writ ing-Table, 2 8s. Serpentine ;

Knee-Hole Writing-Table, .3 15^.; Kidney

Library Writing- Table, i is. Knee-Hole ditto, ;

$ 2s. Gentleman's Writing-Table, 8. These

;

tables are subject to many extras.

Circular Cellaret Sideboard, 2 i6s.
Cellaret Sideboard, with elliptic middle and
elliptic hollow on each side, .3.
Side-Tables from about i IQS.

A " Horse-shoe Dining Table :

7 feet long,
2 feet 6 inches wide, veneered rail, the flaps

supported either way, plain taper legs, and an

astragal round the bottom of the rail, 2 $s. ;

oiling and polishing, 2j."

The lady's screen writing-table, referred to on
p. 50, I ft. 6 in. long, I ft. 4 in. wide, framing
4 in. deep, is
priced at I2s. 6d. ;
but I2s. 6d.

allows for one drawer only ; and we must add

2S. $d. for each of the eight extra drawers (as
 OLD FURNITURE 55
shown in the picture), and about 6s. for other
small extra items, in all i i6s. 6d.

It must be borne in mind that the cost of

material must be added to all the above figures.
The foregoing list is not an exhaustive one of
the furniture made by Shearer and his contem-

poraries, bu,t will give some idea of the vast

strides made the direction of diversity of
in
household appointments between the first and
lastquarters of the eighteenth century.
Shearer's book is very delightful but very
illusive, inasmuch as it certainly illustrates the
work of more than one master-craftsman, as

evidenced by the various signatures, and it is

practically impossible to assign any particular

to its original source.
piece
Shearer does not in any sense ride the high
horse. Hegives us nothing in the shape of
bombast, so prevalent in the design books of the
period, in the direction of dissertations on
"
architecture in general and the Five Orders of
" in
Columns particular.
He and the other makers whose goods are en-
" Book of Prices " were
graved in the apparently
plain, straightforward tradesmen, who made
honest furniture for honest citizens.
Everything
illustrated remarkable for grace of outline and
is

freedom from over-ornamentation ; and we cannot

56 OLD FURNITURE
point to a single article which would outrage
modern taste.

Very mention is made by Shearer of the

little

woods employed in the construction of these

various articles of furniture.Existing specimens
generally consist of mahogany, either in the solid
or stoutish veneers made up on oak or pine with
narrow inlays of satinwood. Inlays of kingwood
and tulip-wood are mentioned in the " Book of
Prices." A beautiful effect is sometimes obtained

by the juxtaposition of two veneers of mahogany

of varying shades emphasised by narrow dividing
lines or stringings of some very light-coloured
wood.
Before leaving the subject it may interest
the reader to find the following amongst Shearer's
list of
" Extras " :

"
Colouring and polishing drawer bottoms,
each 2^." The drawer bottoms were often of
pine or straight-grained oak and would be coloured
to match the mahogany sides.
"
Lining drawer bottoms with blue paper, \\d"
These blue papers are still sometimes found in old
jpecimens.
"
Polishing the outside of any work with hard
wax to be double the price of oil polishing ;
ditto with turpentine and wax to be half the extra

price from oil polishing."

 OLD FURNITURE 57
It will be noted in the illustration (Fig. 34)
that four different designs are given for sash
"
tracery. The price of tracery from square
sash" is
given as No. I, 2 i$s. 4^.; No. 2,
i
qs. ; 3,No. i^s. 6d. ; and No. 4,
1 2 2s. 6d.
The cost of the work in this writing-desk in sim-
plest form is put down at 5 15^., but with tracery
in the doors, and a long list of small extras

(occupying three pages in the price-book), from

id. to 4/. per item, it might well run into 10.
The " Book of Prices " gives an estimate for
making a lobby chest, but unfortunately there
is no
engraving to correspond neither is there
;

" the
one for a table-bedstead, front made to

represent a Lobby Chest."

There are many things in which the " London
Book of Prices " does not help us ; but one thing
it does indisputably do, that is, shows us quite

plainly what furniture was being made and sold in

and about the years 1788 and 1793.
CHAPTER VI: ADAM AND
THE CLASSICAL INFLUENCE
"THERE is something essentially cosmopolitan
about the name of Adam." English furniture
as expressed by the two illustrious Scotchmen,
Robert and James Adam, cosmopolitan, inas-
is

much as it consists of a varied assortment of

Italian, French, and other Continental influences

grafted on to English stock.
We
have seen how the early Chippendale School
developed on Queen Anne lines, and then how
Ince and Mayhew and Robert Manwaring
adapted, wholesale, Chippendale's ideals, whilst
Shearer and Hepplewhite modified them and
added distinctive touches of their own. All the
latter part of this period there was one man

influencing the others to a very marked extent ;

and he, forsooth, was not a cabinet-maker but an

architect of repute. So far as James Adam is

concerned, he may as well be left out of the

furniture question as, apparently, his brother
Robert was the guiding spirit in this second
Renaissance movement.
Few people are aware how much London
owes to the Adam influence. The name is
perpetuated in Adam Street, Adelphi, a quiet
58
 OLD FURNITURE 59
thoroughfare running from the Strand, just
by the Hotel Cecil, towards the Thames. Two
of the adjoining streets still bear names of
members of the Adam brotherhood, viz. Robert
and John ; whilst James and William Streets
have been linked up and rechristened Durham
House Street.
A recent conversation with a constable on the
Adelphi beat elicited the information that the
streets were originally planned by George Villiers,
Duke Buckingham, who, in christening them,
of
included the names of himself, George, and his
three sons, John, Robert, and Adam It was !

just case of slightly muddled history.

a The
Buckingham estate is contiguous to the Adelphi,
and the Duke, evidently desirous of perpetuating
his names and titles, named the thoroughfares
on his property George Court, Villiers Street,
Duke Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street.
"
Of Alley " was a masterly touch, but of all
the quintette it is the only one we cannot find
to-day. It most likely exists under the name of

York Place, the only alley thereabouts. Possibly

the Brothers Adam, in naming the Adelphi
streets, took their cue from their ducal neigh-
bour.
Mr. John Swarbrick, A.R.I.B.A., who pub-
"
lished in 1903 a monograph on the Life, Work,
60 OLD FURNITURE
and Influence of Robert Adam and his Brother,"
tells us that Robert and James were the sons of

William Adam of Maryburgh, near Kinross,

who was probably the leading architect of his
day in Scotland. Robert was born at Kirkcaldy,
Fifeshire, in 1728. He died at 13 Albemarle
Street, London, on I3th March 1792 (a fortnight
before the decease of Sir Joshua Reynolds), and
was buried in Westminster Abbey.
It would not serve any useful purpose here to
enter into a
lengthy discussion as to the
merits or demerits of Adam architecture as

expressed in the numerous

family mansions,
churches, and other buildings in London and the
provinces. Many of these houses remain prac-
tically intact to-day. To those whom the subject
interests we suggest they should examine the three
superb volumes illustrating the architect's
folio

works. Copies can be seen at the Guildhall,

Soane Museum, Victoria and Albert, and British
Museum Libraries. Volumes i and 2 were issued in
parts between 1773 and 1778. A third posthumous
volume was added by the publishers in 1822 when
the whole work was reissued. The 106 plates are
by Bartolozzi, Piranesi, Zucchi, Pastorini, Cunego,
&c., and consist mainly of elevations and details
of such notable buildings as Shelburne House in

Berkeley Square, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynne's

 OLD FURNITURE 61

house, No. 20 St. James's Square (now in the

occupation of the Earl of Strathmore and King-
home), the Drury Lane Theatre facade
old

(since demolished), and, perhaps more familiar to

the reader, the Adelphi Terrace, between the
Strand and the River Thames. The terrace
stands, structurally, much as it did when it left

the builder's hands. Cumberland, the dramatist,

mentioned it as :

" That Thames' bank

fraternal file on
Which draws its title, not its taste, from Greece"

As a matter of fact the name Adelphi was

intended as a classic rendering of the architects'

surname. The Brothers Adam took over a

network of riverside slums, and on the site erected
a classic suburb. The terrace was raised upon
high arches, and, fronting the river, must have
commanded one of the most interesting prospects
in London. The Victoria Embankment (con-
structed in 1864-7) an d London County
t ^ie

Council Gardens, which now intervene, have

considerably altered the prospect, perhaps for
the better. Robert Adam's original design shows
the river and shipping close up to the terrace.
A staircase at each end of the terrace gives access
to the gloomy Adelphi arches.
David Garrick lived at No. 5 Adelphi Terrace
62 OLD FURNITURE
from 1772 till death in 1779. The ceiling
his
of his front drawing-room was painted by Antonio
Zucchi, and it is said that a chimney-piece of white
marble in the same room cost 300 (see Fig. 37).
" Life of " He
Boswell, in his Johnson," says :
[Johnson] and I walked away together ;
we
stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi,

looking on the Thames, and I said to him with

some emotion, that I was now thinking of two
friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings
*
behind us :Beauclerk and Garrick. Ay, sir,'
*
said he tenderly, and two such friends as cannot
"
be supplied.'
To those who know their London, other
houses designed by Adam will be familiar ;
such
asLansdowne House, Berkeley Square, houses in
Mansfield Street, Cavendish Square, the lower
end of Portland Place, a considerable portion of
Fitzroy Square, and a fine stone-fronted house
in Queen Anne Street.
The three volumes of
engravings (issued in
complete form in 1822) referred to above contain
very little which actually illustrates the Adam
furniture. One plate, dated 1771, illustrates a
Sedan chair " as executed for Her Majesty."
This would, of course, mean Queen Charlotte,
consort of George III. There are also an organ-
case, some pier-glasses, lock-plates and other
 OLD FURNITURE 63
door furniture, and a fine side-table made for

Shelburne House.
In addition to the published works the student
may do well to carefully examine the original
Adam drawings contained in twenty-six folio
volumes at the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn
Fields. These original sketches were purchased
at auction by Sir John Soane for 800.

Amongst these
twenty-six volumes
one is
devoted to furniture and other household appoint-
ments, such as carpets, bed coverings, &c. The
drawings (many coloured) are ^igned by Robert
Adam, and mostly dated. We find a magnificent
sofa designed for Lord Scarsdale, and also
" exe-

cuted for Mrs. Montagu in Hill Street." It has

cabriole legs with masks and the ends supported

by nude figures terminating in scaly tails. This

sketch dated 1762, and is apparently the earliest
is

of the series. A simple sofa, without back, has

scrolled end-pieces and straight legs. It is

decorated with flutings, paterae, palm leaves, and

honeysuckle. There is an elaborate sofa in the
French style, dated 1764, designed for Sir
Lawrence Dundas, Bart. A gilt suite for Sir
Abraham Hume (dated 1779-80), consists of large
and small sofas, a confidante, and an arm-chair.
These have very light frames on straight turned
legs. An arm-chair for the Etruscan Dressing-
64 OLD FURNITURE
Room at Osterly has a square back with rounded
corners and vase splat. Each massive arm
consists of a fierce-looking animal with a lion's

body and an eagle's head and wings the gryphon

of mythology.
Hall chairs show circular backs, some with
straight legs and others with X-shaped supports.
The Greek honeysuckle (anthemion) decoration
prevails on these chairs. Fire-grates, dated
1765 to 1779, are mostly very elaborate. A
comparatively simple one, designed for the

eating-room of Cumberland House, has a lion

and a unicorn sitting on either hob. Two
wine-cisterns are form of sarcophagi,
in the
one appropriately decorated with a panel of
grapes and the other with Cupids. Both have
ring handles suspended from lion-head plates,
and one has lion-paw supports.
A series of Dome
beds include designs made
for the Earl of Coventry, the Hon. H. F. Thynne,
and "Their Majesties."
In the collection of sketches there is an entire
absence of anything in the nature of simple
furniture.
The Soane Museum, although so intimately asso-
ciated with Adam in its library, boasts but one
piece of Adam furniture a charming window-
seat with scrolled ends and straight legs. It is
 OLD FURNITURE 65
almost with, an illustration in the
identical

Hepplewhite design book (see Fig. 6). This was.

probably made by Hepplewhite from Robert
Adam's design, and afterwards included in the
"
Hepplewhite Guide."
It is quite certain that much of the fomiture
made by Chippendale and Hepplewhite was
designed by Robert Adam, and it is quite possible
that Sheraton executed furniture from Adam
designs. It is known that the furniture for
Harewood House, Yorkshire, was designed by
Adam and made by Chippendale. The existing
bills prove it to have been a very costly
arrangement.
As we become more careful in nomenclature
we shall designate such joint productions as
" "
Adam-Chippendale," Adam-Hepplewhite,"
and so forth. It should not be a difficult

matter, when we have once grasped the spirit

of the Adam architecture, to recognise the furni-
ture and fitments designed to adorn the interiors
of the Adam houses.
Robert Adam made a journey to France in
1754, and his studies there palpably influenced
his conceptions of furniture, and more particularly
those examples we find in his sketches at the
Soane Museum. Further studies were made in
Western Italy and Rome in 1754 and 1755. In
IV E
66 OLD FURNITURE
1757 he started for Spaktro in company with
Charles Louis Clerisseau, a French architect,
for the purpose of studying the remains of the
ancient palace of the Emperor Diocletian. This
building was erected A.D. 305, and although but
the villa residence of the emperor it originally
covered an area of nine and a half acres.
Mr. G. M. Ellwood, in the Introduction to
"
h;.> work on English Furniture and Decoration,
" Adam saw
1680-1800," says : the possibility
of adapting the style to English homes and
fortunately possessed the power to improve in
the evolving the daintiest
process, style of
decoration that has ever existed. . . . Adam
undoubtedly helped to build his great repu-
tation by the great contemporaries he employed.
Pergolesi, Cipriani, Zucchi, and Columbani as
designers and painters and Angelica Kauffmann,
a painter of exquisite decorative figure subjects,
contributed quantities of original work that went
to his credit."
It must not be supposed that the many-cen-
turies-old ruins at Spalatro yielded any examples
of furniture for Adam to copy ; but the architec-
tural features of the remains of the buildings

supplied motifs for the imaginative architect to

work upon, and the natural result was a style of
furniture suitable for his buildings.
 OLD FURNITURE 67
The Adam influence upon household furniture
commenced soon after Robert's return from
Italy about 1758. He was appointed architect
to the King and his career was thenceforward
one of unbroken success. The four Georges
were anything but ideal patrons of the fine arts,
but in this case the Royal favour seems to have
worked wonders and the Adam taste reigned
supreme for a considerable time. Adam, it will

be seen, was not an originator ; but adapting

ancient Italian motifs to modern requirements
the British public readily accepted his ideas,
which, although not new, came as revelations.
He not only designed fine houses, but also the
interior decorations fitments, furniture, and even
the carpets.
Scarcely a tithe of the furniture in the Adam
style could have been designed by him. The
fashion took such hold upon the public mind
that practically every cabinet-maker of the day
was making something in the mode.
The Adam style in furniture, as set by Adam,
apart from his French styles, was purely Italian
in feeling, and, in the main, very restrained and
formal ; but at the hands of his many imitators
its very formality was its downfall. It soon
degenerated into an absolutely false and unmean-
ing classicalism, scarcely better than the bad
68 OLD FURNITURE
Empire and Trafalgar creations of the succeeding

period.
To get into the real Adam atmosphere the
reader should make a journey to the Adelphi

region. This may be approaching it somewhat

from the popular side ; but after all the ideas he
will imbibe there will come more within the scope
of this volume than anything he will see at the

great houses in Berkeley and St. James's Squares.

The great houses he can examine at his leisure as
opportunity affords.
The first thing that arrests attention in a stroll
down Adam Street is the Adelphi Hotel at the
corner of John Street. The ground floor has been
painted in a way which might make Robert and
James Adam uneasy in their graves ; but the
old architectural features are there beneath the
modern paint. Running right up the front of
the house from the first-floor level are pilasters
worked with Robert Adam's favourite ornament,
the Grecian anthemion (honeysuckle), and over
the ground floor is a band of flutings and paterae.
Just across the way at 7 Adam Street we find the
same architectural designs. These two houses
still retain the old iron balconies scarcely
balconies, they are little more than tall shallow

flower-guards. Continuing down Adam Street

towards the river we find a series of fine old
 OLD FURNITURE 69
spacious doorways, generally with a narrow slit
window on either side, surmounted by semi-
circular lights filled with fan tracery of various
patterns,some lobed and others straight-rayed.
Adam and Robert Street each end in the
Street

Adelphi Terrace, one at the eastern and the other

at the western extremity. The terrace, although
dwarfed by the towering Hotel Cecil, is still
-

imposing, and the view across the gardens and

the Embankment to the "silent highway," with
Waterloo Bridge on the one hand and the towers
of Westminster on the other, is one of the finest

anywhere in the heart of London. The house

fronts of the terrace are not quite as the Adam
Brothers left them. About 1 870 it was found that
the Adelphi arches and houses required under-

pinning. This being successfully accomplished,

the architect thought good to cover up the old
brickwork with stucco. A glance at the two end
houses of Adam and Robert Streets will reveal
the original appearance of the Terrace. The
small iron balconies have been replaced with
stucco balustrades. But running right up from the

balcony level are the original pilasters ornamented

with strings of the Grecian honeysuckle, commenc-
ing with an inverted bunch of acanthus leaves.
These pilasters are moulded in Robert Adam's
own stucco, which must have been of wonderful
70 OLD FURNITURE
composition, seeing that it has stood the test
of a century and a half of London smoke, whilst
so many stone carvings in the city have crumbled

away to dust.
Of course the visitor will note the disc on the
front of No. 5 in the Terrace, denoting that
David Garrick lived there. By kind permission
of the occupants, through the good offices of
Mr. A. B. Hayward, of the Adelphi, we have been
able to photograph the fine mantelpiece in the
Garrick drawing-room on the first floor, now the
library of the Institution of Naval Architects.
The Adam fire-grate has long since dis-
original
appeared,* but the reader will judge for himself
of the beauty of the delicately worked Carrara
marble mantelpiece (see Fig. 37). The room
which contains this gem of eighteenth-century
art is some 14 ft. high, with finely moulded

ceiling, in which are discs and lunettes painted

by Antonio Zucchi. All the mouldings to the

woodwork in the room are carved with charac-
teristic Adam designs. The balusters of the
stair rail are of solid brass finely moulded, but are
now painted to avoid the necessity of constant
polishing.
Fig. 38 represents the marble mantelpiece
* Two very fine Adam fire-grates may be seen in the Ironwork
Section at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
 OLD FURNITURE 71
in the drawing-room at No. 10 Adelphi Terrace.
The ceiling of this room is
painted in the style
of, if not actually ,
by, Angelica KaufTmann.
The Terrace teems with historical associations
of the eighteenth century. It is said that at
one house in the Terrace the beautiful girl who
was afterwards Lady Hamilton occupied a menial
position in the household of a physician.
Fig. 39 illustrates the fine Adam doorway
of No. 2 Adam Street, a house which, outwardly
at least, retains all its old characteristics. The
side-posts are worked with bands of
guilloche
work enclosing the ubiquitous honeysuckle, and
over the door is a semicircular light with straight-
rayed tracery, whilst on either side is a pierced
metal grille.
Close by at No. 13 John Street (see Fig. 40)
is another fine old doorway with the narrow slit
windows on either side. The original lamp stan-
dards and the extinguisher recall memories of
the linkmen with their torches to light folk home
"
through the murk of the London particular "
on Novembe| nights. Opposite, at i6A John
Street (the entrance is round the corner in
Durham House Street), is a house which lays
claim to being the birthplace of Benjamin
Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, although opinions
differ on the point and perhaps a house near the
72 OLD FURNITURE
Gray's Inn Road has a better claim to the dis-
tinction. At any rate the elder Disraeli once
lired ati6A John Street.
In many old houses, and alas in modern ones
!

too, the architect has been content to put,

so to speak, all his goods in the front window.

Having beautified the exterior he has left it at

that. But not so with the Brothers Adam ;

and we have but to take a glance at an Adelphi

Terrace reception-room, with its marble mantel-
piece and Ionic columns, to see, in the mind's
eye, the Adam sideboards and cabinets gracing
the arched recesses.
To come to the furniture suited to, if not
actually designed for, the Adam houses,we have
in Fig- 41 a carvedand gilt side-table with bow
front on four legs, which are decorated with

strings of bell-flower. The top is of mahogany.

Round the frieze we find the same fluting as
on the fronts of the Adam houses. This and the
next illustration are from photographs lent by
Mr. C. J. Charles.
Fig. 42 is another side - table of carved ma-
hogany, standing on six legs, with a brass rail at
back from which silk or moreen curtains would
be suspended to protect the wall from contact
with the Sheffield plate or silver service. The
frieze is decorated with flutings, paterae, and vase,
 OLD FURNITURE 73
with looped draperies, all of which will be found
as details in the houses. The tapering legs are
grooved in Corinthian style.
Fig. 43 is a simple but dignified example in the
possession of Mr. J. H. Springett, of Rochester,
who values it at 30. It is built of fine mahogany
and the drawers are lined with oak. The square
tapering legs are panelled on their facets, and have
characteristic Corinthian capitals.

Fig. 44 is a carved and gilt Adam settee, with

shaped back and arms on four carved and fluted
legs. It upholstered in a green silk tabouret.
is

This seat measures 4 ft. 9 in. in length. The

owner, Mr. F. W. Phillips, places the date at
about 1775.
Fig. 45, a very long settee on eight legs, has
the characteristic Adam fluting on the front rail
of the seat frame.
Mr. Clouston, in his book on eighteenth-
century furniture, gives us a masterly and complete
analysis of the Adams and their influence. He
tells us, in effect, that Robert and James Adam

were architects first, but in the second place

were forced into designing furniture to fit in
with their architectural schemes. It was not
from any knowledge of or love for furniture, as
furniture, that Robert Adam was led to design
it ; but having tried existing models and found
74 OLD FURNITURE
them wanting there was nothing left for him
but to suggest the suitable forms of (as well as
the decorations on) the furniture to accord with
the architectural features of his interiors.
The foregoing paragraph contains but a bald
summary of the case as put by Mr. Clouston into
four chapters of his book.
The original Adam designs at the Soane
Museum contain but few examples of chairs,
and the few that are shown are not of a simple
nature. From lack of evidence to the contrary
one is Adam did not actually
led to think that

design many chairs, either simple or elaborate.

We frequently find sideboards, settees, cabinets,
and bookcases, catalogued for sale or offered
by dealers, and such we accept indisputably as
Adam. Only at rare intervals does anything
come into the market in the nature of the few
fine chairs after Robert Adam's designs preserved
at the Soane Museum. Sometimes we see a
simple chair catalogued as Adam, but almost
invariably the question arises, is it
really Adam ?

There may be some salient point in the decora-

tion to lend colour to the ascription, but how often
do we find a chair which both in build and
decoration throughout puts itself outside the
doubt ? In the chapter on the later Sheraton
and Empire periods we shall give some examples of
 OLD FURNITURE 75
chairs with Adam features. It is unwise to

dogmatise when we find pieces of furniture

and more particularly chairs which might be
styled Hepplewhite, Sheraton, or Adam at the
sweet wills of the happy possessors.
Mr. Ellwood tells us
" Adam was not successful
in designing chairs, for though he introduced
new shapes, they were not perfect in proportion
or line, and it remained for Sheraton and Hepple-
white to correct their defects and develop a
number of beautiful designs from them." A
moment's thought will soon convince us of the
reasonableness of this. Every man even a Robert
Adam has his limitations. The present writer
imagines that very few architects could design a
chair of perfect form structurally as well as from
the purely decorative point of view ; whilst
an architect of quite modest attainments might
design a sideboard or even a cabinet, which lends
itself readily to architectural treatment. Adam
was a consummate architect, and his sideboards
were consummate creations.
CHAPTER VII: SHERATON
THE MAN AND HIS AIMS
THE foregoing chapters must be taken as in-
troductory to the subject of Sheraton. The
usual procedure in text-books of this nature is to
divide the subject-matter into two sections
" " "
mahogany and satinwood," or perhaps
"Chippendale" and "Sheraton." We have
endeavoured, so far as space admits, to enlarge
upon the subject and give some little prominence
to the other men who were making history in
the furniture world. To fully appreciate Chip-
pendale it necessary to give some thought
is

to the designers who were working directly and

indirectly under his influence, such men as

Manwaring, Ince, and Mayhew. In like manner

we cannot get a thorough grasp of the Sheraton
spirit till we know something of Shearer and

Hepplewhite, and perhaps a little more of Adam.

As in the preceding chapters, we shall first of
all go to the fountain-head for inspiration.
" The Cabinet Maker and
Upholsterer's Draw-
ing Book, by Thomas Sheraton, Cabinet Maker,"
1793, was printed for the author by T. Bensley,
and sold by various London booksellers and the
author at 41 Davies Street, Grosvenor Square.
76
 OLD FURNITURE 77
The appendix to the book gives the author's
address as 106 Wardour Street, which goes to
prove that he moved there about 1794. Later
on he appears to have moved again to 8 Broad
Street, Golden Square. Possibly in the near future
these houses may all bear the inscribed tablets
which are becoming so familiar on London house
" Here
fronts, and he who runs may read
Sheraton lived and worked."
To come to the contents of the book. It

consists of 446 pp. of text with 68 engravings,

issued in three parts, 1791-1794, with an appendix
of 54 pp. and 33 engravings, dated 1793, and a

compendium of 27 pp. and 14 engravings. The

engravings bear various dates from 1791 to 1794.
A revised edition with 122 engravings was issued
in 1802. The frontispiece, drawn by Sheraton
and engraved by Hawkins, shows us a classical
apartment in which are seated and standing
certain professors and an attendant Cupid there ;

is
temple in the distance. The legend
a classic
" Time alters fashions
attached to the plate reads :

and frequently obliterates works of art and

ingenuity ; but that which is founded on geo-
metry and real science will remain unalterable."

Chippendale started this scientific pose the ;

smaller men followed suit, and Sheraton put the

capping-stone on it, but with this difference :

78 OLD FURNITURE
whilst we doubt as to the posing of
are never in

Manwaring we are in some danger of being

taken in by Sheraton with his air of absolute
sincerity. That he thoroughly believed in himself
there can be little doubt.
Sheraton explains his allegorical frontispiece
and we learn that Geometry, standing on a rock
is to " who is attentive
talking Perspective,
to the principles of Geometry as the ground of
his art which art
;
is
represented by the frame
on which he rests his hand." Then we have
figures of
Drawing and Architecture, the latter
measuring the shaft of a Tuscan column. We
have not at present discovered anything of
the Tuscan order in Sheraton furniture and ;

Sheraton does not explain the presence of Dan

" on the back
Cupid. He tells us that ground is
the Temple of Fame, to which a knowledge of
these arts directly leads."
The copies of Sheraton's " Drawing Book
"

were mainly bought by members of the trade

for whose edification and instruction they were

primarily intended, whereas Chippendale's

" Director " was intended rather as a
guide
to taste for the wealthy purchasers of furniture.
The furniture buyers would have no desire
to wade through page after page of more or
less abstruse dissertations on perspective a.nd
 OLD FURNITURE 79
geometry, which might, on the other hand, do
service in the making of good cabinet-makers
out of the rough material of the eighteenth-

century London apprentice.

Thomas Sheraton, the man who produced
this grandiloquent work in 1791-1794, was born
of humble parentage at Stockton-on-Tees, about
1750 or 1751. He appears to have had but little
education, and in his youth devoted much time
to the writing of tracts and preaching in Baptist

chapels. Tracts by him are dated 1792 and

1794. The curious reader can find them in the
British Museum Library. Even in his furniture
books he drops into Bible History and discourses
on Jabal, the city which Enoch built, the Tower
of Babel, and Solomon's Temple, and interlards
his text with religious phrases. We thus find
that Sheraton was issuing tracts and furniture
books in the same year, and to some extent
bound up in the same covers.
A link with the history of Sheraton has only
of recent years passed away in the person of
Adam Black. We read in the 1V1 emoirs of the great

publisher, edited by Alexander Nicholson, LL.D.,

that in 1804 Adam Black, then a struggling
" He
young man of twenty, visited Sheraton.

(Black) was willing to do any honest work by which

he could make a living, and inquired in all
8o OLD FURNITURE
directions, but in vain.
he heard of a At last

man called Sheraton, publishing a book called

the Cabinet Maker's Encyclopaedia,' who might
*

give him something to do. He called on him,

and found the worthy encyclopaedist and his
surroundings to be painfully humble but as he ;

wanted an assistant Adam Black agreed to help

him in whatever way he could, either in writing
articles or in a less intellectual capacity. Here
is his description of the man and his place.
" *
I was with him for about a week, engaged in
most wretched work, writing a few articles and
trying to put his shop in order, working amongst
dirt and bugs, for which I was remunerated
with half a guinea. Miserable as the pay was I
was half ashamed to take it from the poor man.'
In his diary, addressed to his parents, he said
further :
'
He is a man of talent and I believe
of genuine piety. He understands the cabinet
business I believe was bred to it; he has been,
and perhaps at present is,a preacher ; he is a
scholar, writes well ; draws in my opinion,
masterly ;
an author, bookseller, stationer, and
is

teacher. We may be ready to ask how comes it

to pass that a man with such abilities and resources
is in such a state ? I believe his abilities are his

ruin, for attempting to do everything he does

"
nothing.'
 OLD FURNITURE 81

The editor of Black's Memoirs :

" The
says
*
future publisher of the Encyclopaedia Britan-
'
nica and friend of Jeffrey and Macaulay,
working with this good threadbare man amongst
dirt and bugs, and taking half a guinea for his
trouble with some compunction, is an instructive

spectacle."
Adam Black describes the street as an obscure
" the house was half
one, and says shop, half
dwelling-house, and that he looked himself
like a worn-out Methodist minister with thread-
bare black coat."
These unpleasant details dispose of the popular

fallacy that Sheraton was the prosperous pro-

prietor of a huge London factory turning out
thousands of pieces of fine furniture for the
adornment of the houses of wealthy patrons and
the delight of future generations.
The pity of it all is not that Sheraton has
been placed upon a pedestal, but that he has been
placed upon the wrong one. He was a self-taught
genius with a taste for geometry and drawing.
Whether no he was a prolific maker of furniture
or
we see that he was a prolific writer upon the
subject, with a finer grasp of it than possessed
by any other man of his day. We must look
upon him rather as the Boswell than the Johnson
of furniture.
iv f
82 OLD FURNITURE
As journeyman cabinet-maker he came from
a

Stockton-on-Tees probably between 1770 and

1775. There is apparently no positive evidence
forthcoming, and opinions differ considerably as
to the exact year but we can well believe that
;

twenty years would scarcely be too long a

period for the journeyman of twenty-one or
thereabouts to develop into the master
cabinet maker with sufficient experience to
-

launch his
" Book." To
Drawing compile
such a work, embracing, as it does, the ideas of
at any rate the majority of his contemporary

tradesmen, would necessitate the experience of

many years and the labour of some few more.
To sum up the situation : Sheraton was a
born teacher possessed of a burning desire to
publish his ideas for the advancement of his
fellow-craftsmen and the enrichment of himself.
That the monetary results fell far short of his

expectations, and even deserts, we can well

believe, when we read his obituary notice by
" " in the Gentleman's
Sylvanus Urban Maga-
zine for November 1806. The notice stated
that Sheraton had formerly been a journeyman
cabinet-maker, but left his wife and two children,
itwas feared, in distressed circumstances, having
supported them by authorship since 1793, and
that he died at Broad Street, Soho, of a phrenitis,
 OLD FURNITURE 83
after a few days' illness, at the age of fifty-five.

By this it would appear that if even at the time

of the publication of the
"
Drawing Book " he
was a master cabinet-maker scarcely safe to
it is

ascribe to his hand any furniture made after

'793-
Assuming that he was apprenticed at the age
of fourteen (about 1765) and came to London
" seven "
at the expiration of his long years (say
1772), he worked but twenty-one years as an
actual maker. It goes without saying that
next to Chippendale he left more impress on
English furniture than did any other individual
man of his own or any other time. Not only did
he leave his mark on furniture, but his name has
ever since been more closely connected with a

recognised style, or rather a number of styles,

than any other man since Chippendale. And this,
perhaps, somewhat unjustly. Sheraton's name
has lived and will live more by what he put in
" " than
his Drawing Book by what he did as
an individual furniture-maker and designer. His
"Encyclopaedia," published in 1804-1807, was
bad enough to ruin his or any reputation, but
of that more later on. The " Drawing Book "
contains much that was his own original work,
but much more that was cleverly picked from
the brains of others. Sheraton has been described
84 OLD FURNITURE
by various writers as arrogant, self-assertive,

taking trie best of other men without acknow-

ledging the inspiration, and sometimes even
going so far as to vilify the source of
inspiration.
One writer stigmatises him as the Ishmael of the
furniture industry. He
eagerly seized everything
going on round about him, and in his efforts to
enrich himself conferred a priceless boon upon
the furniture trade at large.
At the risk of being accused of quibbling we
suggest that before the publication of the
"
Drawing Book " there was no such thing as
a Sheraton School of furniture. There was,
in London
at any rate, an English style being

naturally evolved from an older one influenced

by contemporary French ideas and ideals.
Sheraton collated all this and set his name to

it,and there it has been and probably will

remain for all time. Much as we may quarrel
with the term, it is difficult to find a handier
name than the " Sheraton School," even if

Sheraton was not the schoolmaster.

The very apparent outcome of Sheraton's
"
literary effort, the Drawing Book," was a
marked improvement in provincial furniture-

making. By the aid of such a useful volume the

provincial maker was in a position to compete

 OLD FURNITURE 85
with the Metropolis and many a country maker
;

who for years had been content to go on making

heavy furniture more or less on the old Chip-
pendale lines, seized the opportunity of coming
into line with the prevailing London modes. We
have but to look at the list of subscribers to find
the names of cabinet-makers in all parts of the
" " of
country.* The Encyclopaedia 1804 should
have had a similar vogue, for we learn in the
obituary notice that Sheraton had obtained
nearly a thousand subscribers for his work,
which only reached thirty numbers out of the
" In order to increase the number
promised 125.
of subscribers he had lately travelled to Ireland,
where he obtained the sanction of the Lord-
Lieutenant, the Marchioness of Donegal, and
other distinguished persons."
The writer has recently seen in a Devon farm-
house a sideboard of the period made up of
old faded mahogany on oak and pine. It was
decorated with oval panels outlined with narrow
strings of ebony and holly. The legs were
square and tapering, but very massive as com-
pared with any accepted Metropolitan model.
The ends were concave and receding. The
* To his " Dictionary " Sheraton appends a list of about 250

cabinet-makers in or near London.

86 OLD FURNITURE
three drawers had never been pierced for handles,

being pulled out by grasping the under edges.

Such was probably made either at Exeter,
a piece

Tiverton, or Taunton, its present abiding-place

being somewhere midway between the three
towns.
CHAPTER VIII SHERATON :

AND THE "DRAWING BOOK"

SOME writers have placed Thomas Sheraton on
a very high pedestal. Without making invidious
distinctions we think that, in
are inclined to

spite of its iconoclastic tendency, Mr. R. S.

Clouston's appreciation of Sheraton comes nearer
the mark. We
use the word appreciation in the
sense of a just At the same time,
estimate.
with all
deference, we Mr.
are inclined to think
Clouston under-estimates the man's ability and
integrity. Without going into the question of
the three or four hundred pages of perspective,
which, after all, concern the furniture-collector
but little, if we read through the " Drawing
Book " we shall soon arrive at the conclusion
that Sheraton had no intention of passing off all
the designs as his own. Sheraton was no fool,
and if, like the Heathen Chinee, he did " the
same with intent to deceive," it was the clumsiest
of clumsy attempts. What we can all deplore is
that when he palpably borrowed a design from
another man he rarely had the grace to acknow-
ledge the actual source of inspiration. On the
few occasions when he did so it looked very much
like advertising the other men so many copies
87
88 OLD FURNITURE
of the book formuch advertisement. For
so
we " This
read
instance, :
design [library steps]
was taken from steps that have been made by
Mr. Campbell, upholsterer to the Prince of
Wales. They were first made for the King
and highly approved of by him. There are
. . .

other kinds of Library Steps which I have seen,

made by other persons, but in my opinion these
must have a decided preference both as to
simplicity and firmness when they are set up."
This may be the attitude of a man with ulterior

motives, but not that of a dishonest one.

If in futurewe come across steps of the par-

ticularpattern we shall have to call them
" " "
Campbell steps. Those made by the other
persons," for want of a better distinction, will
"
still have to be Sheraton."
Of the Appendix he writes : " This
a cabinet in

cabinet, I presume, is as new as the fire-screen, and

will have a better effect in the execution than in
the design." The
" "
I presume discounts any
idea of attempt on the part of Sheraton to pass it
off as his At the same time, knowing,
own. as

he probably did, the name of the designer, it

looks like a breach of the unwritten law of copy-

right. The same may be said of his illustration

of a library table (Plate xxx).
"
It has already
been executed for the Duke of York, excepting
 OLD FURNITURE 89
the desk drawers, which are here added as an
improvement."
It appears that Sheraton had a friend at Court,
" Summer Bed two
for he tells us, of the in
" " The first idea was communi-
compartments :

cated to me by Mr. Thompson, groom of house-

hold furniture to the Duke of York, which, I

presume, is now improved, as it appears, in this

design." Here the man's sublime egotism comes

out. He had apparently not seen the original
and yet claims to have improved upon it. The
reader may judge of Sheraton's edition of the
" Summer Bed " in Fig. 46.
"
In another place he writes To assist me in
:

what I have here shown I had the opportunity of

seeing the Prince of Wales's, the Duke of York's,
and other noblemen's drawing-rooms. I have
not, however, followed any one in particular,
but have furnished my ideas from the whole,
with such particulars as I thought best suited to
give a display of the present taste in fitting up
" "
such rooms." The phrase present taste is

very significant. Taking Sheraton at his own

valuation, his mission was to display the taste
of his time
right up to date. He blamed
the Hepplewhite firm for being behind the times
in their
" Guide."
He does not suggest they were
at fault in not copying his (Sheraton's) designs,
9o OLD FURNITURE
but says, in effect, here is a fine new style in
furniture rapidly spreading over the country,
and here is
Hepplewhite, who should be in a
position to know what is
going on, copying
or adapting the antiquated ideas of Chippendale,

Manwaring, and Ince and Mayhew.

This trimming of his sails to every wind that
blew was in the end the downfall of Sheraton.
We see it in his " Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's
Encyclopaedia," which he commenced to issue
in parts in 1804. So far as the " Encyclopaedia "
is concerned he
might well have left it to more
capable people. As a matter of fact he only
" "
lived to get as far as Capstan in the letter C,
and one fails to find anything much nearer to
" Achor a
furniture than valley of Jericho,"
or
" Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury."
The furniture designs attached to the " Ency-
"
clopaedia show that Sheraton was again trimming
his sails to the real decadence in English furniture.
In all charity we can only hope he was not the
inventor of some of the atrocious designs for
chairs ornamented with anchors, cables, tridents,
dolphins, and other seafaring emblems, which
marked the Trafalgar craze in furniture.
Previously, in 1803, Sheraton had published
" Cabinet
his Dictionary, containing an ex-
planation of all the terms used in Cabinet, Chair,
 OLD FURNITURE 91
and Upholstery Branches ;
with directions for
varnish making, polishing, gilding," &c. &c.,
including his old friend the Five Orders of Archi-
At the same time he
tecture in Perspective.

hoped the subscriberswould feel disposed to

" new and
encourage the splendid work now
publishing," viz. his Encyclopaedia.
"
The " Cabinet Dictionary must have been a
useful work in its own day, and it is full of
interesting matter to the present-day collector
who desires to dive beneath the surface of his
Sheraton period acquisitions.
To return to the " Drawing Book." Of a
he writes " This
plate (dated 1793) dining- :

parlour gives a general idea of the Prince of

Wales's in Carlton House ; but in some parti-
culars it will be a little varied, as I had but a
"
very transient view of it (see Fig. 47). His
littleexcursions up the back staircase seemingly
did not take him higher than the dining-parlour.
For the purposes of his book
was necessary it

to put in this hall-mark of Royalty, and posterity

should be grateful for a peep at the Royal parlour,
" "
even if slightly varied by Sheraton. Had
he been the Prince's furnisher he would, very
readily and quite properly, have told us so.
We remember once seeing exposed, in a shop
window, the ledger account for perfumes, soaps,
92 OLD FURNITURE
and cosmetics supplied to the Prince, and a tidy
amount it totalled up. Perhaps some day the
Carlton House furniture account may come to
light.
Sheraton makes no attempt at claiming the
" French State Bed." He writes " Beds of :

this kind have been introduced of late with great

success in England." Then he :
" Plates
says 25,
27, 28, and 29 require no explanation, they are
therefore omitted." The first, second, and third
of these consist of chair backs and traceries
for cabinet doors which may or may not require

explanation but the other represents two long

;

clock cases the only ones in Sheraton's book

and they certainly do require some explanation.
They are very much in the French style. The
reader will findthem reproduced in Fig. 48.
from all this controversial matter we
Apart
occasionally happen upon happy little touches
from Sheraton's pen, e.g. of an " Elliptic Bed " :

" As fancifulness seems most

peculiar to the taste
of females, I have therefore assigned the use of
thisbed for a single lady, though it will equally
accommodate a single
gentleman. The
elliptic

shape of the frame of this bed contracts its width

at each end considerably, on which account it will
not admit of more than one person." Of side-
boards he writes " It is not usual to make
:
 OLD FURNITURE 93
sideboards hollow in front, but in some circum-
stances it is evident that advantages will arrive

from it. If the sideboard be required nine or

ten feet long, as in some noblemen's houses,
and if the breadth of it be in proportion to the
length, it will not be easy for a butler to reach
across it. I therefore think in this case a hollow
front would obviate the difficulty, and at the
same time have a very good effect, by taking off
part of the appearance of the great length of
such a sideboard, besides if the sideboard be
near the entry door of the dining-room, the hollow
front will sometimes secure the butler from the

jostles of the other servants."

The collector who takes an interest in furniture
construction will find some interesting items of
information as to material and methods in the
" Of
Drawing Book." he tells us
a table top :

" The is three inches broad, and mitred

framing
at the corners : and the pannels are sometimes
glued up in three thicknesses, the middle piece
being laid with the grain across, and the other
two lengthways the pannel to prevent its
of

warping." When
table is not framed, he
a
tells us, "particular regard should be had to

placing the heart side of the wood outward,

which naturally draws round of itself, and may
therefore be expected to keep true, notwith-
94 OLD FURNITURE
standing its unfavourable situation. N.B. The
heart side of a board is easily known by planing
the end, and observing the circular traces of the
grain,which always tend outwards."
Fig. 49, reproduced from Plate xxxii of the
"Drawing Book," represents Sheraton's idea of
drawing-room chairs.
Fig. 50, from Plate xxxiii, shows two dining-
parlour chairs.
Fig. 5 1 represents a series of six chair backs, which
exhibit the growing tendency to straight lines in
the construction of chairs. One of these chair
backs is indeed a shield based on a Hepplewhite
idea, but even in this case we find the curved sides
of the shield supporting a horizontal top instead
of the Hepplewhite camel hump.
Fig. 5 2 represents three "Corner Bason Stands."
The central one is of the ordinary type, containing
the one real drawer and two sham drawer fronts.
The design on the left shows a pleasing serpentine
front with tambour shutter and a small cistern
with tap. This, and the one on the right
which has a fold-down top belong to the
make-believe bedroom furniture of the period.
Such washstands would go with the bureau-
bedstead or press-bedstead in the bachelor's

bed-sitting room.
The reader who has access to the original
 OLD FURNITURE 95
design books of the period will do well to compare
" "
these Sheraton Drawing Book washstands
with a similar group in Plate 19 of Shearer's
" Book of Prices." He will find the practically
same pattern in the open-fronted variety and
also in the enclosed circular stand. In addition
he will find square washstand with
a little

tambour front and swing glass. This goes a

long way to show that they were in general use
and it would be difficult to point to any one man
as the inventor.
These corner washstands are very plentiful
little

to-day. The small size of the basins they are

made to hold makes them practically useless
for modern requirements. Enterprising furni-
ture-restorers fall back on converting them into

cabinets, but the result is not satisfactory. Once

a washstand always a washstand at least in

appearance.
CHAPTER IX: SHERATON
PERIOD FURNITURE
A COMMON amongst people who do not
error

pretend to more than a passing knowledge of

eighteenth-century furniture and even amongst
collectors whose habits should have engendered
more discrimination consists in the idea that
there are sharp lines of demarcation between the
various styles or schools. Furthermore, with the
majority, just three or four names serve as handles.
We shall hear that this chair is
"
Chippendale,"
this one is
" this sideboard
Hepplewhite,"
" other
" Adam."
Sheraton," and, perhaps, this
Beyond that they do not, even if
they are able,
seem willing to go. Tell such a person that, in
the Chippendale connection, a particular chair is
"
only of the Chippendale School," and perhaps
made by Manwaring, he will reply that he
has never heard nor wishes to hear of such a
man. In like manner Ince and Mayhew are
sealed books. He will accept certain pieces of
"
furniture as Sheraton," but refuses to go
through the necessary course of comparative
anatomy to arrive at the conclusion that this

piece borrowed without acknowledgment

was
from Shearer, and this other directly influenced
 OLD FURNITURE 97
by Robert Adam, if not actually made on com-
mission from an Adam design.
As recently as in the month of May of
1912 a small sideboard (45 in. wide) was sold
at Christie's for ten guineas. It contained three
drawers and was made up of mahogany without
inlays on pine and beech. It was catalogued
"
as Sheraton," and was of just such a design
"
as would be found in Shearer's London Book
of Prices." Shearer might have borrowed such
a design from Sheraton or a fellow-member of
the London Society of Cabinet Makers. It is
anything but an easy matter to decide, and the
auctioneer feels safe in the generic term
" Sheraton." In the same catalogue there are a
pair of Sheraton satinwood card-tables selling
for ten guineas. These were of a rather bold
grained satinwood banded with tulip- wood.
There was nothing in the general make-up to
suggest anything but the generic ascription.
Another satinwood table, with two flaps sup-
ported on hinged brackets, about 28 in. wide
and 39 in. long when open, sold for nine guineas.
The top had slightly curved sides and shaped
ends and finely made rule joints. It was banded
with tulip - wood and decorated on top with
a bold fan-shaped inlay surrounded with honey-
suckle. This fan and honeysuckle, which may
IV G
98 OLD FURNITURE
be seen in Adam drawings at the Soane Museum,
would suggest Adam influencealthough there
was nothing in the general appearance of the
table reminiscent of the accepted Adam furniture.
We could imagine some maker of the Sheraton
school adopting an ornament which would have
been better applied to a table of architectural,
or at least more severe, design. A Sheraton
satinwood toilet-table 25 J in. wide with folding
top banded with rosewood sold for twenty -two
guineas. The lower portion consisted of a

cupboard with concave tambour front, under-

neath which was a drawer lined with oak. The
main structure had mahogany sides and was
lined with mahogany. In outline it was dis-
tinctly reminiscent of Shearer, but the free
use of satinwood would seem to preclude an

ascription other than Sheraton. Without illus-

trations these four examples may convey little to
the reader, but they are mentioned as pointing
to the fact that even to-day, when Sheraton
furniture is much sought after, it is possible
to purchase dainty pieces of mahogany and
satinwood of the Sheraton school at quite
reasonable prices.
In a sale early in 1912 a Sheraton satinwood
chest, 34 in. wide, with lift-up top forming
a dressing-table and a drawer fitted for a
 OLD FURNITURE 99
basin, sold for twenty-four guineas. An en-
coignure of mahogany and satinwood inlaid
with honeysuckle ornament and laurel festoons
sold for twenty-seven guineas, whilst a table
with two drawers, writing slide, and stationery
compartments, of satinwood with tulipwood
bands, fetched twenty -one guineas. Such
pieces quite fine, but not finest, examples-
" from various
catalogued as sources," are still
"
selling at prices which suggest good invest-
ments." Their
beauty consists
simplicity in
of outline, delicate but restrained application of
inlay, and, above all, mellow tones in the wood,
which only age has brought about.
It is in the nature of things that finely
painted pieces of furniture should have a
much higher market value than simple inlaid
work. A finelydesigned piece of satinwood
furniture embellished by the brushwork of a
Pergolesi or an Angelica KaufTmann is
probably
the highest expression of English furniture
ideals.

As examples we giverepresentations of
two tables in the possession of Mr. George
Stoner, of West Wickham, Kent. Fig. 53
represents one of a 4 ft.
pair of side-tables,
wide, made for Lord Nelson, and given by him
to Lady Hamilton at Naples. The top of each
ioo OLD FURNITURE
is
beautifully painted with a half-circular design,
in which is a classical figure en grisaille, a swag of
flowers with cupids in the centre and a bunch
of flowers at each end. The border is painted
with peacock's feathers, trophies, and scrolls.
Fig. 54, another Sheraton side-table, 5 ft. wide,
is of satinwood inlaid and beautifully painted
with classical portraits in medallions, bold festoons
of flowers, ribbons, and trophies. The legs,
not shown in the photograph, are square and

tapering, and are painted with a leaf ornamen-

tation.
These pieces rank as amongst the finest pro-
ductions of the period. It is difficult to avoid

superlatives in dealing with such things, exem-

plifying, as they do, the brushwork of a con-
summate artist applied to structures emanating

from the workshop of a master craftsman in

the case of the Nelson-Hamilton tables, it is said,
no less than that of Sheraton. We know, on the
of
" Life of that
authority Southey's Nelson,"
the first meeting of England's Hero and Lady
Hamilton took place at Naples in 1793 and
that Sir William Hamilton was recalled from
the Neapolitan Court in 1800. This fixes the
date of the side-tables down to some time
between those two dates ; and we know that
Nelson did not meet the fair Emma between
 OLD FURNITURE 101

1793 and 1798, on the occasion of his second

to Naples on the shattered Vanguard, after
visit

the Battle of Cape St. Vincent. It is possible

that the tables were conveyed to Lady Hamilton
on that occasion as a mark of personal esteem
and gratitude for the services she had rendered
the country during the prosecution of the war.
Nelson was married to the young widow of Dr.
Nisbet in 1787, and it is
possible that the tables
were made for him between that date and
his appointment to the
Agamemnon 1793, in

quite possible but hardly likely, seeing that, whilst

rusting on shore, he spent most of his time at

his father's parsonage ranging the countryside
with a sporting gun at full cock, to the infinite
danger of his associates, or birds'-nesting in the
woods with his young wife.

Fig- 55? satinwood secretaire, 5 ft. high

a
and 27 in. wide, with cylinder front and upper
part enclosed by glazed doors, is painted with
floral designs. It stands on tapered legs of

octagonal section. This piece relies for beauty

less upon its
painted decoration than
upon
balance of structural design and delicate con-
trasts of inlaid work.
This is also in Mr. George Stoner's collection,
with the three following examples.
Fig. 56 exemplifies the potter's art as applied
102 OLD FURNITURE
to the decoration of furniture. A writing-
table, 30 in. wide, with rising top and fitted side-

trays. The
central portion forms a writing or

reading desk with rising mirror at back. The

two side-drawers are inset with Wedgwood
plaques, by Flaxman, representing
designed
" "
The Marriage Cupid and Psyche
of and
" A Sacrifice to
Hymen." Flaxman furnished
designs for the Wedgwood factories from 1775 to
1787.
Fig. 57, of much simpler construction, is a

cabinet of satinwood banded and inlaid. The

cupboard has an incurved front, the doors of
which, with the sides, are filled in with trellis ed
brass wire-work.

Fig. 58 severely simple example of the

is a

china cabinets of the period, one of a set originaliy

made to fit the arched alcoves of an old Georgian
house. Mr. Stoner has filled it with choice
examples of porcelain eminently fitted for such a
receptacle, mostly of Chelsea-Derby make and
period (1776-1786). It is just such porcelain
with which the wealthy collector of the Sheraton
period would have delighted to fill his cabinets.
It will not be out of place here to leave the

subject of furniture for a moment and take a

glance at what was being done in the sister art,

which had concurrently been brought to a like

 OLD FURNITURE 103
perfection. There is a very intimate connection
between the two arts. The best efforts of the
potter called for something fitting from the
cabinet-maker. A table presupposes
fine fine

table-ware, and vice versa to some extent. The

beginning of fine
porcelain England in dates
from 1744, when Heylyn and Frye at Stratford-
le-Bow, claimed that they were manufacturing
" " ware
chaney equal to imported Oriental
specimens. Between 1750 and 1768 Nicholas
Sprimont was well at work on his masterpieces
at Chelsea, when it is said that the dealers waited
outside the factory to
buy specimens
eager
immediately the kiln was broken. In 1776
the Chelsea factory was amalgamated with that
of Derby (founded by William Duesbury in

1756), and Dr. Johnson, after a visit in 1777,

" that he could have vessels of silver
observed
of the same size as cheap as what were here
made of porcelain." The chief glories of
Worcester were produced under Dr. Wall between
1751 and 1783. In 1765 Wedgwood founded
the Etruria works, and by 1776 had invented his
solid jasper ware, which he brought to perfection
in 1786, and in 1790 he produced his marvellous

copies of the Portland vase. Cookworthy, of

Plymouth, discovered kaolin or China clay in
Cornwall in 1765, and here we have the beginning
104 OLD FURNITURE
of true hard porcelain in England as dis-

tinguished from the soft paste of the previous

decade. The Lowestoft factory was making
soft paste in 1756 and hard paste in 1775. Cham-
pion was making the famous Burke tea service at
Bristol in 1744, whilst Tebo was modelling his
inimitable figures there about the same time. All
these famous men and factories were, in the main,

turning out costly vases and figures and richly

decorated table wares for the plutocrats of the
day, whilst humbler folk were being catered for
by Whieldon, Turner, Wedgwood, Spode, and
others in Staffordshire, and the Greens of Leeds,
who were all making their ironstones or cream
wares, which rapidly supplanted the old salt-
glaze and clumsy English Delft wares of Fulham,
Lambeth, Bristol, and Liverpool. Spode is
" willow
credited with the invention of the

pattern," which for nearly a century and a half

has been dear to the heart of the British housewife,
and is still the fittest adornment for an old English
dining-table.
We have already mentioned that there is an inti-
mate connection between furniture and pottery,but
this not in the same sense as in the case of French fur-

niture, whereon we often find porcelain plaques as

much in evidence as the ormolu mounts. The ap-
plication of metal purely for the sake of ornament
 OLD FURNITURE 105
isthe exception, rather than the rule, in English
furniture, and the same with porcelain. Sheraton,
"
in his Drawing Book," in mentioning a commode
in the Prince of Wales's drawing-room which
room, by the way, was very apparently not
furnished by him calls attention to the
"
freeze,"
which has " a tablet in the centre made of an
exquisite composition in imitation of statuary
marble. These to be had,
any figure or on
of

any subject, at Mr. Wedgewood's, near Soho

Square." In this he presumably points to
Wedgwood's beautiful jasper cameo work for
which John Flaxman furnished so many designs.
Before leaving the subject of the finer for the
simpler articles (the raison d'etre of this volume),
we will proceed to illustrate a few more examples
which, not coming within the reach of the
if

collector ofmoderate means, will serve as standards

of taste in the Sheraton period furniture. The
collector will start with humble
things and work
upwards by easy stages, whereas these illustrations
to some extent will be found to work in the

opposite direction.
Fig. 59, a cabinet at the Victoria and Albert
Museum No. 636, 1870) is "veneered
(Official
with satinwood on the top is a small landscape
:

in a half-oval compartment, outside which are

festoons of leaves and naturally rendered flowers
io6 OLD FURNITURE
border of " eyes
" of
and scrolls ;
a the peacock's
tail runs round the whole of the top ; the front
is decorated with festoons of flowers and oval

medallions containing flowers." It is so

also

described by Mr. Pollen in the Museum hand-

book.

Fig. 60 represents a dressing-table bought

by the Museum for 200 in 1870. It is as

difficult a matter to keep this illustration out

of a Sheraton period book as it was for Mr. Dick
to restrain from coming round to the subject of

King Charles's head. It is the first article to

arrest attention in the eighteenth-century section
of woodwork at Kensington. It is veneered
with satinwood and decorated with festoons
of flowerspainted in natural colours. The
figure subjects in the oval panels are painted in
grisaille, somewhat in the style of Angelica
Kauffmann. The mounts are of silver. Angelica
the
" Fair " of
her bio-
Kauffmann, Angelica
graphers, was the infant prodigy of painting.
Born in 1741 of Swiss parents her father was a
portrait painter she was earning a considerable
income by her brush at the age of nine and was a
fashionable portrait painter at the age of eleven or
thereabout. It is said that she painted the por-
traits of bishops, archbishops, and dukes. She was,
at fifteen, a finished musician and the mistress of
 OLD FURNITURE 107
four languages. It is small matter for wonder
that with these attainments she was the rage of
Rome. We
have culled these particulars from
Mr. R. S. Clouston's notes in " English Furniture
and Furniture Makers." Mr. Clouston says:
" She came to
England in 1765, and at once
became the fashion, both in social and artistic
circles. She painted portraits of the King and
the Prince of Wales, and became a personal
friend of Queen Charlotte. She had proposals
of marriage by the score, for she was amiable and
beautiful as well as clever, but she paid heed to
none of them, having fixed her affections (or
possibly her ambition) on Reynolds. ThougV
that confirmed old bachelor saw no reason for

changing his condition, he not only found her

work but actually employed her." We learn
that she decorated two of Sir Joshua's marble

mantelpieces with her brushwork. Mr. Clouston

is of opinion that although the reintroduction of

painted decoration as applied to English furniture

"
may be accounted for in more ways than one, it
is
by no means improbable that the vogue
attained by this lady artist had much to do
with its
general adoption."
The
Fair Angelica, whose full baptismal names
were Marie Anne Angelique Catherine, was the
victim of an unfortunate mesalliance with a
io8 OLD FURNITURE
footman, whom she married believing him to be a
nobleman. She afterwards married Zucchi, the
Italian artist employed by Robert Adam, and left
for Rome in or about 1780. This gifted woman,
who died in 1807, was one of the original members
of the Royal Academy, and it is thought her
influence with Royalty had much to do with the

granting of the charter.

Fig. 61, from photograph kindly lent by Mr.
a
C. J. Charles, of Brook Street, Hanover Square,
represents a side-table 4 ft. 5 in. in length. It is

of satinwood inlaid with conventional lines.

Fig. 62, also lent by Mr. C. J. Charles, represents

a pair of satinwood card-tables of the Sheraton
period. The photograph is arranged to show the
one table closed with the top of the other table
above to exhibit the details of the painted
bands.
Fig. 63 is a square table with rounded
corners, shutting up into a half-table by the back
legs moving round. Satinwood painted with gar-
lands of flowers. Date about 1790.
Fig. 64 is a toilet-table on six turned legs
with fluted tops. It is of satinwood with painted
border of interlaced wavy bands. The date
assigned to it is about 1785. The photograph
is
reproduced by kind permission of Violet, Lady
Beaumont.
 OLD FURNITURE 109
Fig. 65, a work-table of satinwood; oval top
bordered with dark wood ;
silk
bag beneath. Date
about 1780. Thomas Sheraton's name for such
was a pouch table. This specimen is
reproduced
by kind permission of the Earl of Ancaster.
Fig. 66, a two-flap table of mahogany, with
running border in satinwood inlay. There is
a drawer on either side. Date about 1780.
Reproduced by kind permission of Lord
Middleton.
Fig. 67, a small mahogany table with tray
top. It is inlaid with various woods. Date
about 1780.
Fig. 68, a lady's workbox on stand satin- ;

wood veneered and inlaid with darker woods in

floral design. Date about 1780.
The last six examples, Figs. 63 to 68, were on
loan some few years since at the Victoria and
Albert Museum. They were all described as
Sheraton with approximate dates given as above.

Being photographed in groups, some idea of

relative size of the articles is maintained. It is

practically impossible to convey actual ideas of

size when the exigencies of the book demand
that the plates be uniform in measurement.
The writer has avoided tiresome details of feet
and inches except in cases where it has seemed
essential.
no OLD FURNITURE
Fig. 69, a simple Sheraton sideboard with
fivedrawers on tapering legs with thimble toes,
has the fan-shaped spandrils beneath the central
drawer, a detail often found in sideboards of the
period. This illustration by Mr. F. W.
is lent

Phillips, of Hitchin. The reader will do well to

compare this with one on Fig. 35, taken from
Shearer's book. Without being identical in any
point there are distinct resemblances between
the two pieces.
Fig. 70, in the possession of Mr. Springett, of
High Street, Rochester, has a central drawer and
cellaret at either end, with a tambour-shuttered
cupboard beneath the central drawer. This piece,
valued at ^25, is built of mahogany lined with
oak. The two Sheraton knife-cases shown in
the same photograph have a value of from 35J.
to 45J. each. These knife-boxes often undergo
transformation at the restorer's hands, and are
converted into stationery cases. As sideboard
ornaments the knife-cases of Hepplewhite or
Adam design are infinitely superior. They are
more often vase or urn shaped, the tops rising on
central pillars. Those Adam
design in par-
of
ticular rank as amongst the choicest expressions
of art in eighteenth-century woodwork.
Fig. 71, a Sheraton tallboy chest of drawers,
also belonging to Mr. Springett, is valued at
 OLD FURNITURE in
about 12. is veneered with finely figured
It
dark mahogany and lined with oak. The archi-
tectural cornice lends dignity to an eminently
useful and commodious structure suitable for a

large bedroom. A
pleasing feature is the oval
medallion in the centre of the cornice worked
with a very choice piece of figured veneer.
Fig. 72 represents an interesting type of
Sheraton period table on central pillar with claw
base. It is often described as a sofa table. The
two flaps are supported on hinged brackets.
In the present instance the four brackets, which
are nicely shaped, are hinged flush with the
sides of the table. Itveneered with mahogany
is

and inlaid with bands of satinwood. Some

tables of this outline are of plain mahogany,
and they are usually fitted with brass-mounted
casters, often of fine quality. Such tables have
an average value of about 5.
The pillar-claw table was essentially a product
of the eighteenth century, and was the usual form
in use as the dining-table in this country till
the beginning of the nineteenth century, when its

place was taken by the telescopic table. In

Sheraton's plate dated 1803
"Dictionary" a
shows a Grecian dining-table of semicircular form
on six pillars terminating in double C-shaped
supports ornamented with lion masks and rings.
ii2 OLD FURNITURE
Behind the table are three couches of concave
outline with scrolled backs. In front of the table
is a tall two-tier dumb-waiter with canopy
surmounted by three candle sconces supported
on a Greek fret bracket. Under same date
Sheraton illustrates
" occasional
fitted
tables,"
with chess and backgammon boards.
Fig. 73 represents a typical Sheraton simple
dressing-table of mahogany inlaid with strings and
bands of satinwood. This would have an average
value of about ^4. The glass which surmounts

shape. The toilet

it is rather unusual in its shield -

glass of the period is more often circular or oval.

The supports are quite typical in shape. It is
usual to find, as in this case, small turned ivory

paterae at the apex of the supports and also at

the junctions of the curved parts with the small
uprights. These toilet-glasses have a value of
from thirty to seventy shillings according to size
and decoration.
Fig. 74 is a corner basin stand referred to on
p. 53. to the Sheraton period it
Belonging
might equally well be styled either Sheraton,
Shearer, or Hepplewhite.
CHAPTER X: SHERATON,
EMPIRE, AND TRAFALGAR
PERIOD SEATS AND CHAIRS
WE have it on the authority of Sheraton himself
that cane-work as applied to furniture was
reintroduced about 1770. In Victorian times
cane-work was looked upon as rather a humble
kind of seating to a chair and a fit finish to

nothing which aspired to any dignity higher than

bedroom furniture. But not so in Sheraton's
day. It was placed cheek by jowl with the
finest efforts of both the cabinet-maker and the
painter.
Fig. exemplifies the fact in a two-back
75
painted settee set with medallions painted in the
Kauffmann style. It belongs to a set of which,
needless to say, the settee is simply the chair

duplicated. We
are indebted to Mr. Edward, of

King Street, St. James's Square, for this illustra-

tion. Quite apart from the painted decoration,
the graduated cane-work in the ovals is in itself

quite a work of art. These fine chairs and settees

are sometimes built of satinwood, but more often
of beech japanned and afterwards decorated with
fine brushwork.
IV 113 H
n4 OLD FURNITURE
Figs. 76, 77, and 78 represent a group of three
very fine caned Sheraton period chairs, in the pos-
session of Mr. George Stoner, of West Wickham,
Kent. They are of satinwood painted with
classical subjects and floral designs. The first

of the trio (No. 76) is of such

exceptional quality,
both as to decoration and design, that one would
"
like to label it made by Sheraton and painted
by Angelica Kauffmann." The painted medallion
the fan-shaped cane-worked panel is in the
set in

Kauffmann style, and, whatever the name of

the designer, it was made by a consummate
craftsman. The diamond lattice-work between
the two lower the graceful upward sweep
rails,
of the sides into the back posts and the scrolled

top, to say nothing of the fan, all point to Adam

design in excelsis. Fig. 78, though possibly
well within the late Sheraton period, is, in
the rounded knees and legs of curved outline,
" "
suggestive of English Empire or perhaps
" "
Trafalgar style.

Fig. 79, an illustration supplied by Mr. F. W.

Phillips, is of a three-back settee in lacquered
wood with caned seat. The reader will easily
imagine the chair from which it is triplicated.
It exhibits gracefully curved arms, turned legs,

and well-designed horizontal splats. The details

of the top rail will be found later on in an
 OLD FURNITURE 115
arm-chair (Fig. 92). This settee has a value of
about twelve guineas.
Fig. 80 is an armless two-chair back settee of
painted wood, worked to imitate bamboo. The
small turned balls add strength in addition to
their decorative value. This piece has a value
of six or seven pounds. The delicate workman-
ship and excellent design in this seat lift it out
of the common and it is easy to imagine a
;

step downwards to the simple spindle chair of

the period with rush seat, with still another step
lower to the Sheraton Windsor chair with
hollowed-out wooden seat. The Windsor chair,
pure and simple in detail, followed the prevailing
mode of the day. (Naturally, being a product of
the countryside, would be somewhat belated
it

in its
following.) We do not ever remember
having seen Windsor arm-chairs duplicated or
triplicated into settees ;
but they may exist as
exceptions proving the rule.

Fig. 8 1 illustrates a Sheraton arm-chair of

about 1760. It is made mahogany. The six
of
vertical balusters will be found as details in a
Hepplewhite chair (Fig. 27), but the shaping
of the arms points to Sheraton. This chair
is the property of Mr. W. Hugh Spottiswoode,
who has kindly given us permission to publish
the illustration.
n6 OLD FURNITURE
Fig. 82 represents a chair at the Victoria and
Albert Museum, concerning which a good deal
of a controversial nature has been written.
The Museum authorities have catalogued it as

belonging to the early part of the nineteenth

century, and in the style of Sheraton. The
Museum handbook suggests that Sheraton's handi-
work probably seen in this chair. But, even if
is

Sheraton built it, it is just such a chair that Adam

would have designed for the music-room of one
of his great houses. The suggested date (" early
nineteenth century"), if correct, would preclude
the idea of Sheraton having had any hand in its
construction.

Fig. 83, in which the four vertical balusters

support a broad top rail inlaid with a serrated
border, belongs to the latter part of the eighteenth
century. The lower back rail, the uprights of the
backs, and the upper faces of the arms are all

delicately reeded. The small carved terminals to

the back posts are often seen in Sheraton chairs
with vertical balusters.
Fig. 84 is an arm-chair of graceful proportions,
built of mahogany with fine details of reeding
and grooving in the arms and back (period about

1780), exhibited some years since in the loan

collection at South Kensington, the property of
Mr. Henry Willett of Brighton.
 OLD FURNITURE 117
Fig. 85 is an upholstered arm-chair of Sheraton
period, from a photograph lent by Mr. F. W.
Phillips.
Fig. 86 has a finely worked back showing
distinct Adam design. This example was lent to
the Victoria and Albert Museum by Mr. W. H.
Evans, of Forde Abbey. The cross-rail will be
found repeated in a simple chair (Fig. 93).
From the time of Chippendale right on to the
end of the eighteenth century English furniture
seemed to be passing through a natural and
very gradual course of evolution, mainly in the
direction of lightness coincident with the use of

lighter woods, principally satinwood. Cause and

effect on this point are self-apparent and hardly
call for comment. It goes without saying that
French fashion was the dominant factor in furni-
ture, and particularly in the more pretentious
furniture of the Sheraton period. In much of
the Chippendale furniture we can see suggestions
of late Louis XV. styles in its flamboyant outlines
and heavy carving. All through the subsequent

design books we meet with

illustrations and
" French chairs," " Chairs with
descriptions of
French feet," &c. &c. The only two clock-cases
illustrated by Sheraton are of French origin,
"
and he says they require no explanation."
The elaborate beds illustrated by Ince andMayhew
n8 OLD FURNITURE
and Sheraton do not suggest any development, on
pure English lines, from the older time furniture.
The Adam chairs and sofas when not built to
accord with the Adam classical architecture are
frankly French in feeling. It does not appear
that English people ever took very kindly to the
more florid styles made in imitation of the
French productions. But as French furniture
developed on simpler lines in the late Louis XVI.
taste we find its influence on this side of the
Channel increasing by leaps and bounds. We use
the term simpler lines in relation to the actual
outlines of the furniture rather than to its decora-
tion. The elaborate display of choice and costly
woods used in theform of marquetries and inlays,
the richly chased ormolu mounts and priceless
porcelain insets scarcely had their counterparts
on English furniture. These embellishments
were purely the productions of consummate
French artists indigenous to French soil. English
efforts in the same direction were merely tentative
and scarcely successful.
The downfall of the monarchy in 1793 naturally
checked any marked development in French
furniture for the time being, whilst the establish-
ment of the First Empire eleven years later quite
as naturally called for new things to suit the temper
of the times. It is but a figure of speech to say
 OLD FURNITURE 119
that the Emperor called for Imperial furniture :

for, unlike the race of dilettantes of the old regime

recently dethroned, Napoleon was far too busy

consolidating his Empire to have much to say
in matters of art. But the Empire called for

something of an Imperial nature in household

adornments, and obviously it must be something
quite apart from the old order of things. A chair
must be an Imperial throne or at least a Consular
seat. England must needs follow suit ; and this
not from any love of the French Empire or her
Emperor. The result was the style familiarly
known as English Empire. That it took a firm
hold of the furniture-makers and furniture-
buying public, for the time being at any rate,
is
very apparent and that it was, in the main,
;

in the very worst of taste is

equally apparent.
Even Sheraton, who was capable of better things,
was compelled by sheer force of circumstances
to fall into line one might almost say he was
starved into it.
Presumably the public had
" "
no further use for his Drawing Book with
all its excellences, exhibiting, as it did, styles in
English furniture which, try how we may, we shall
probably never improve upon styleswhich even
though they came in many instances from
France were at least translated into good
English.
120 OLD FURNITURE
The public must have Anglo-Imperial-cum-
Trafalgar styles, and we find Sheraton publishing
in 1804-1807 his
" "
Encyclopaedia series of plates,
which, simply because they are the latest vogue,
must be, if we are to believe him, quite the
finest things the world had seen. These plates
exhibit a perfect nightmare of furniture with
motifs consisting of a whole menagerie of impossible
animals, a fully equipped arsenal, and an assort-
ment of ship's chandlery sufficient for the outfit
of a three-decker. Much of this very latest
fashion must have been made to celebrate
Nelson's Egyptian and Spanish victories, cul-

minating in the Battle of Trafalgar. In one plate

we have a draped window through which is

seen a ship, presumably the Victory, riding at

anchor.
English-Empire furniture was probably never
made out of any compliment to the French
nation, seeing that it was the sheer duty of every
true-born Briton to hate France, Frenchmen in
general, and the Little Corporal in particular.
But it quite certain that the Egyptian-Trafalgar
is

styles were expressions of the nation's pardonable

idolatry of her greatest naval hero.

These Near-Eastern influences lasted for some
considerable period. In " Grecian
1823 stools,"
" Roman
chairs," and kindred styles must have
 OLD FURNITURE 121

been in full fashion, judging from the plates in

" London
the Chair Maker's and Carver's Book
of Prices for workmanship as regulated and
agreed to bya committee of Mateter Chair Manu-
facturers and Journeymen." The edition of

1823 was probably a reissue called for by some

" " in the
necessity in the trade. Supplements
book are dated 1808 and 1811, and the
work is referred to as having been published in
1802. It may be slight evidence on which to

argue the point. The absence of the accepted

Sheraton School patterns from the book does
not necessarily prove that such things had
altogether fallen into disuse.The prices of the
older pattern were possibly arrived at from the

early publications, whilst it was considered

necessary by the trade to have a supplemental
schedule dealing with the latest productions.
One thing is quite certain, and that is that
Graeco-Roman patterns in chairs and stools
were very prevalent during the first decade of
the nineteenth century.
In 1807 Thomas Hope published a book of
engravings dealing with interiors and furniture
of Roman form. He claimed that the consolida-
tion of Freedom the result of the Revolution
in France had restored
in that country the pure
taste for the antique styles of Greece, and we have,
122 OLD FURNITURE
own "
in his words, in his mouldings, antique
Roman fasces, with an axe in the centre:
trophies
of lances,surmounted by a Phrygian ' Cap of
'
Liberty winged figures emblematical of free-
:

dom and antique heads of helmeted warriors

;

arranged with cameo medallions." He describes

mahogany chairs inlaid with metal and ebony,
and claims that such decorations are better than
dust-collecting relief carvings. The process of
stamping out the wood and metal with the same
dies was, of course, none other than the old
buhl work applied to chairs instead of cabinets.
Such forms in furniture were probably suggested
by discoveries Pompeii and Hercu-
in the ruins of

laneum, then only recently excavated ; but as

few people were able, or even cared, to live in
houses founded on the old Pompcian models,
furniture as depicted by Thomas Hope could have
had but little vogue in England, although Hope
" At Paris
said :
they have been carried to a great
deal of excellence and perfection." In May of
1912 a set of ten carved mahogany chairs, in the
Thomas Hope style, with lyre-shaped backs (six
with tapestry and four with carved seats) sold
in a London auction-room for 30.
Fig. 87 is a chair of beechwood, painted and gilt,
with seat of plaited cane. The Victoria and
Albert Museum assigns this to the early part of
 OLD FURNITURE 123
last century. The continuous curve of the
back post seat-rail and front leg is
typical of the
Trafalgar period.
Fig. 88, a chair given by Sir James D. Linton>
R.I., to the Victoria and Albert Museum, is a
fineexample of an Empire hall seat. It is built
of mahogany, and finely carved with two eagles'
heads on an " Amazon
"
shaped shield.
Figs. 89, 90, and 91 represent three painted
which might with some good reason have
chairs,
been placed in the Adam section of the book.
They were photographed whilst on loan at the
Victoria and Albert Museum. These chairs,
the property of the Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-
Fane, K.C.B., who has kindly granted permission
to reproduce them, were catalogued as Adam, and
the dates given were respectively 1800, 1790, and
1780. The chair in centre (Fig. 90), with the
X front legs and carved sphinx on each arm-post,
exhibits salient features of the Trafalgar period
furniture. The oval rosettes at the bases of the
arm-posts and the honeysuckle and rosette on the
top are Adam decorations. Fig. 89 has brass
mounts and characteristic Adam features. The
suggested year, 1780, for Fig. 91 probably ante-
dates this chair some twenty to twenty-five

years. These chairs are at Brympton, Yeovil. The

owner states that to the best of his belief they
124 OLD FURNITURE
have been at Brympton ever since they were
made.
Fig. 92 is an arm-chair quite simple in outline
but of excellent design. It is of solid dark

mahogany throughout with the exception of the

seat frame, which is veneered on beech. The
diamond lattice back has small cup disks at the
intersection of the bars. The back posts and top
faces of the arms are reeded. The front legs and

arm-posts exhibit finely proportioned turnery.

The ends of the top rail are turned and grooved,
whilst the centre is square with a small inset

panel of finely figured wood. This chair was

purchased for .3, which price included the
cost of re-upholstering in striped horsehair cloth

copied from original material.

Fig* 93 > another solid mahogany chair of late
Sheraton period, has a top rail carved with a
draped festoon and conventional palmette foliage
suggesting Adam influence. The front legs, back

posts, and cross-bars are reeded. Including

restoration and re-upholstering, this chair,
bought
in mid-Somerset, cost only 2.

Fig. 94, a chair with an oval panel superimposed

on a lattice-work slat, has a suggestion of English

Empire style in the carved animal's feet at the

bottom of the arm-posts. The method of
joining the arms to the back posts is rather
 OLD FURNITURE 125
unusual. It will be noticed that the arms,
which terminate in scrolled volutes, sweep down
from the top of the chair, and, instead of being
mortised butt- jointed, are pinned to the
or

side-posts in a manner which gives them the

appearance of being movable. The pins are

covered with turned disks. This chair, the

property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, has a value of a

little under j. Chairs of the calibre of the
last threeexamples are desirable acquisitions
either in sets or as oddments. As single examples
they are very naturally less expensive. The
arm-chairs are in no sense easy-chairs, but, like
the singles, dainty occasional seats.
serve as

Usually built of rich dark mahogany on unob-

trusive lines, they scarcely ever strike a discordant
note. The specimens under consideration seem
the worse in frame for a century or more
little

of wear and bid good to last as long again with

ordinary care. Lack of available space must

serve for an excuse for not
illustrating any
Sheraton period upholstered tub chairs. The
type is well known, with its comfortable seat and
rounded back, but it does not appeal strongly
to the collector, inasmuch as beyond the legs
there is nothing showing of the ancient wooden
structure, and one can be quite certain that
the covering has been renewed over and
i26 OLD FURNITURE
over again. One cannot help reflecting that
people of the nineteenth century must have been
easily pleased when they were content to discard
the roomy wing chairs and tub chairs of the

eighteenth century for the hard buttoned seats

of little ease, known in Victorian times as
" ladies'

easys."
Figs. 95, 96, and 97 exemplify three chairs of
very late Sheraton development, which have been
placed in juxtaposition for close comparison as to
details. They belong to a period approximating
to 1820. Two of these (Figs. 95 and 97) rely for
decorative value upon colour tone of fine mahogany
and simplicity of treatment. The third (Fig. 96),
built of beech, relies upon elaboration of orna-
mental details, consisting of relief carvings and
marquetries of brass. We
cannot help feeling
that there a painful straining after effect in
is

the over-elaboration of the lower back rail, on

which the rectangular panel of marquetry has
the appearance of having been placed as a plaster
to heal or hide a fracture. We can imagine
a set of such chairs with mixed influences

Sheraton, Hope, Adam, Empire adorning the

dining-parlour of Mr. New-Rich some hundred
years ago ;
and then we can see the taste of the
solid merchant or banker in the two mahogany
chairs (Figs. 95 and 97). Almost any dealer
 OLD FURNITURE 127
would describe these as Adam chairs ; and, indeed,
there are slight suggestions of Adam influence in
the carved and pierced lower cross-rails. There
are thousands of houses up and down the country
stillclinging to sets of such old-fashioned chairs,
generally upholstered in black horsehair. The
reader will recognise their natural home in the
comfortable four-square old white painted house
with mid-Georgian doorway and door, brass
knocker and name-plate and wire-gauze blinds to
the front ground-floor windows to keep out the
vulgar gaze of the passer-by when, as is often
the case, the house is built without forecourt

right on to the sidewalk. Such houses (maybe

in the middle of the High Street or just on the
outskirts of the smaller provincial towns) are
inhabited by the third generation of the family
solicitor or doctor or the descendant of the

old local banking firm with five or more names

on its cheque heading. Sets of these chairs
frequently come
into the market, and may be

acquired atfrom eight to ten pounds the half-

dozen, with a pound or two added if there is
fortunately an arm-chair to match. They are
of merit, both as to design
of varying degrees
and workmanship, but the material is almost
invariably of the best. It will be noticed that
the top rails, broad and bent to fit the back, are
128 OLD FURNITURE
sometimes simply fastened across the fronts of
the uprights, whilst others, mortised into the
side-posts, are finished off with scrolled tops.
The broad top rails as well as the curved front

legs in chairs ofthe period are details found in

the old senatorial seats familiar to us in classic

sculpture.
The writer is indebted to Messrs. Horsfield
Brothers, of the East Anglian Galleries, 19
Orchard Street, Portman Square, for photo-
graphs of a fine Chippendale pattern Windsor
arm-chair and a pair of Norfolk or Suffolk Sheraton
period chairs (Figs. 98, 99, and 100).
A whole volume might well be written on
old furniture of the English countryside, carrying
us from the oak stools, chairs, and settles of
Elizabethan and Jacobean times through the
ladder-back rush-seated chairs of Lancashire
and Yorkshire and the Chippendale Windsor
chairs of South Buckinghamshire down to the
turned spindle chairs of the end of the eighteenth
century. Such are essentially English in their
expression and things quite apart from all
Venetian, Dutch, French, or Trafalgar influences.
Messrs. Horsfield Brothers have kindly supplied
some notes, which are here quoted in extenso :
 OLD FURNITURE 129

" EARLY ENGLISH BENT-WOOD CHAIRS

" These chairs were the successors of the
early
spindle chairs and oak Yorkshire chairs of the

Jacobean period, and the earliest were probably

made at the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne
at High Wycombe in Bucks, and are generally
known as Wycombe Chairs. The early type,
likethe finer chairs of the period, had the plain
back splat and four cabriole legs with club feet.
Following the character of the other chairs of
the Chippendale period, the later chairs had
fretted and sometimes carved splats until about
1780, when the most popular form was found to
(
be the wheelback,' and was practically the sole
pattern turned out from that date.
" The
great charm of these chairs is the variety
of English woods with which they are made,

being generally yew, plum, apple, pear, or cherry,

and rarely ash, as at present. These woods,
with time, take on a very lovely polish, and as the
chairs were made from mixed saplings in the

green, in order to bend them successfully, one

finds chairs with apple, plum, and cherry mixed,
which gives a very pleasing effect.
u Of the best form of bent-wood chairs
ever
made in England, are those made from 1780 to
1820 at Mendlesham in Suffolk, and Scole in
iv 1
130 OLD FURNITURE
Norfolk, and known as Mendlesham or Norfolk
chairs. Tradition has it made by
that they were
two brothers, who had been apprentices of
Sheraton, the great cabinet-maker, and the beauti-
ful lines of the chairs and the artistic finish of

the inlays and turnings certainly tend to confirm

the tradition. At one time, nearly every farm-
house in Norfolk or Suffolk could boast of several
of these chairs, but they have gradually drifted
into collectors' hands, and are now cherished as

examples of some of the best country cabinet-

maker's work of the eighteenth century."

The writer of this little book remembers on a

May morning some years ago during country a

ramble through the uplands of South Bucks, on
the fringe of the Penn Country, from Stoke
Poges and Burnham Beeches to Beaconsfield,
straying into a beech wood just short of the little
lace town. It was just one of those walks
described somewhere as
" a journey to anywhere
in search of the whatever." The " whatever "
in this case was a peep at the Windsor chair
industry. Those who have travelled in Brittany
may have happened on the sabot-maker deep in the
woods, where, with his family, he lives and works
all summer through in a hut of hurdles and

heather workshop, bedroom, kitchen, and

 OLD FURNITURE 131

parlour all in one shaping, with his queer tools,

winter-felled branches into good Brittany sabots.

Here, at home, but twenty miles from the heart

of London in the Buckinghamshire beech wood,
was the English equivalent. Under the leafy
platforms of the mighty beeches, in amongst the
grey-green trunks, was a rude shelter of furze-
woven hurdles, open to all the winds of heaven,
but shelter enough from the few drops of rain
which might filter through the leafy canopy.
There was the chair-spindler at work on legs
and spars for Wycombe chairs. A foot treadle-
lathe and a few turning-chisels all his tools, and
a stack of beechwood all his materials. An
open-air occupation as clean as the white chips
falling from his chisel, and as sweet as the scent

from the last autumn's leaves lying deep in the

beech wood.
With memories of the purring of the chair -
spindler's wheel, the flecks of dappled sunshine
on the moss cushions, and the cheeping song of the
willow-wren in the undergrowth, we will leave the
spindler to his toil and this book to the reader.
 1 1

IV : 1
 FIG. 3. HALL CHAIRS

FIG. 4. SUMMER-HOUSE CHAIRS

(From Manwaring's " Chair Maker's Friend ")
FIG. 5. EASY CHAIR AND FIG. 6. WINDOW STOOLS
"GOUTY STOOL"
"
(From Hepplewhite's Guide")
FIGS. 8 AND 9. SIDEBOARDS
" Guide
(From Hepplewhite's ")
PSfe: N^ v <
/ "--
'!

NS)
a
CO "C

si

-a
a
. a
FIG. 13. DESIGN FOB A BED
"
(From Uepplewbite's Guide")
 FIG. 14. BED PILLARS
(From Hepplewhite's " Guide ")
FIGS. 15 AND 16. HEPPLE WHITE CHESTS OF DRAWERS
 FIG. 17. HEPPLEWHITE WARDROBE
(The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin)
O Q

s :-

1*M
g
a 1
A S
 H f
p""*
FIG. 21. HEPPLEWHITE CHILD'S SWINGING COT
 FIG. 25. HEPPPLEWHITE FIG. 26. HEPPLEWHITE
" WHEAT-EAR "
CHAIR OAK HOOP-BACK CHAIR

FlG. 27 SIMPLE ARMCHAIR FIG. 28. SHIELD-BACK CHAIR

IV: 2
*s I
FIG. 34. BREAK-FRONT WRITING-DESK
(From Shearer's " Book of Prices ")
FIG. 35. KNEE-HOLE WRITING TABLE AND
BOW-FRONTED SIDEBOARD
(From Shearer's " Book of Prices ")
r

[2
J g
"3
"
CO
03 ^
a
 FIG. 39. ADAM DOORWAY
(At No. 2 Adam Street, Adelphi)
FIG. 40. ADAM DOORWAY
(At No. 13 John Street, Adelphi)
~
 ^gjwgw^^

FIG. 46. A SUMMER BED

"
(From Sheraton's Drawing Book")
FIG. 47. WRITING TABLE AND THE PRINCE OF
WALES' DINING-PARLOUR
"
(From Sheraton's Drawing Book ")

IV: 3
 FIG. 48. LONG CASE CLOCKS
"
(From Sheraton's Drawing Book")
FIG. 49. DRAWING-ROOM CHAIRS
(From Sheraton's " Drawing Book ")
2 S
FIG. 55. SHERATON SECRETAIRE. INLAID AND
PAINTED SATINWOOD
(The property of Mr. George Stoner)
FIG. 56. SHERATON WRITING-TABLE INSET WITH
WEDGWOOD PLAQUES
(The property of Mr. George Stoner)
FIG. 57. SHERATON CABINET
(The property of Mr. George Stoner
FIG. 58. SHERATON CHINA CABINET
(The property of Mr. George Stoner
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FIG. 60. SHERATON DRESSING-TABLE, PAINTED IN THE
STYLE OF ANGELICA KAUFFMANN
(At the Victoria and Albert Museum)
FlG. 62. PAIR OF SHERATON CARD-TABLES
(The property of Mr. C. J. Charles)
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FIG. 65. SHERATON WORK- FIG. 66. SHERATON MAHOGANY
TABLE TABLE
(The^property of the Earl of (The property of Lord Middleton)
Ancaster)

FIG. 67. SHERATON TABLE FIG, 68. SHERATON WORK-BOX

WITH TRAY TOP ON STAND
FIG. 69. SHERATON SIDEBOARD OF SIMPLE OUTLINE
(The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips)

FIG. 70. SHERATON SIDEBOARD AND KNIFE-CASES

(The property of Mr. J. H. Springett)
FIG. 71. SHERATON TALL-BOY CHEST OF DRAWERS
(The property of Mr. J. H. Springett, Rochester)
9 N
 FIG. 75. SHERATON TWO-CHAIR-BACK SETTEE
(The property of Mr. Edward, King Street, St. James' Square, S.W.)
FIG. 79. SHERATON THREE-CHAIR-BACK SETTEE. LACQUEREDJ
WOOD AND CANED SEAT

FIG. 80. SHERATON TWO-CHAIR-BACK SETTE. PAINTED

WOOD AND CANED SEAT
(The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips)
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 INDEX
ADAM architecture in London CABINETS for china, 102
" "
and Provinces, 58, 59, 62 Cabriole chairs, 26
" Back "
The Brothers, 12, 58 Camel chairs, 25
chairs, 64, 74, 75, 118, 123 developed from Cupid's
and the classical influence, Bow, 25
58 Caned furniture, 39, 113
doorways in the Adelphi, 71 Card-tables, 97, 108
drawings at Soane Museum, Cellarets, 32
"
63 Chair Maker's Guide," 13, 21
furniture made by Chippen- Chairs, dimensions of, 31
dale, 65 Chests of drawers, 36, 38
influence on furniture, 12, Child's cot, 40
69 Chippendale's "Director," 13,
journeys to France and 22
Italy, 65 Chronology of furniture de-
limitations, 75 signers, 13
mantelpieces in the Adelphi, Churchwarden architecture and
70 furniture, 6
published works of, 60 Classic pose of designers, 19, 77
Robert, Life of, 59 Claw tables, 1 1 1
settees, 73 Clouston, Mr. R. S., on Adam
sideboards and side-tables, furniture, 73
72,73 on Angelica Kauffmann, 107
stucco, 69 appreciation of Sheraton, 87
window seat at Soane Clocks in Sheraton's Drawing
Museum, 64 Book, 92
Adelphi and Adelphi Terrace, Confidantes, 31
58, 61, 68 Copeland's Design Book, 12
Arts and Crafts and L'Art
Nouveau, i
DECEPTIVE or make-believe fur-
BACK stools, 18 niture, 17, 54
Basin stands, 38, 52, 94, 112 Designers and Design Books,
Bed pillars, 37 Chronology of, 1 3
Beds, 17, 36, 64, 89, 92 Desks, 36, 50, 51
Bent-wood "
chairs, 129 Dictionary," Sheraton's, 42, 90
Bibliography, xi Dining-parlour chairs, 94
Black,
"
Adam, on Sheraton, 79 Disraeli and the Adelphi, 71
Book of Prices " (see Shearer) Dome beds, 18, 64
Book of Prices, London Chair Doorways (Adam) in the Adelphi,
Maker's, 121 71
Brympton, chairs at, 123 "Drawing Book" (see Sheraton)
Buckinghamshire chair industry, Drawing-room chairs, 94
128 Dressing-tables, 49, 98, 112
Bur j airs, 17, 31, 40 ?
Duchesse," 31
133
 34 INDEX
ELLIPTIC beds, 92 INGE and Mayhew, 13, 15
Ell wood, Mr. G. M., on Adam, Inverted shield as chair back,
66,75 46
Empire furniture, 118
"Encyclopaedia," Sheraton's, 13, JAPANNED furniture, 40, 42
80, 90, 1 20 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, and the
Estimates for making furniture Adelphi, 62
in eighteenth century, 51 Jones, Wm., Design Book, 12

FIRE-GRATES (Adam) 64, 70 KAUFFMANN, Angelica, 66, 71,

French influences on English 99, 106, 113
furniture, 117 Knife-cases, 1 10
Furniture construction, 93
LIBRARY steps, 88
GARRICK and the Adelphi, 61,
70 MANTELPIECES in the Adelphi
Georgian furniture, present-day 70
of, 8 Manwaring, 19
" appreciation
13,

" Gouty
stools," 30 Mayhew (see Ince and Mayhew)
Guide," Hepplewhite's, 13, 24, Wm., and English furni-
Morris,
30 ture, i

HALL chairs and seats, 23, 26, NELSON, Lord, and Sheraton
123 furniture, 99, 120
Hamilton, Lady, tables given to, Norfolk and Suffolk chairs, 128,,
99 129
Harewood House furniture de- \
signed by Adam, 65 OSTRICH plume decorations, 26,
Hepplewhite, 13, 24 44, 45
beds and bed pillars, 36, 37
caned furniture, 39 PAINTED furniture, 40, 99, 105,
chairs, 25, 40, 43 "3
chest of drawers, 36, 38
"
Pottery and porcelain of Shera-
designs in Bookol Prices," ton period, 120
47 Prices of Sheraton furniture,
furniture suitable for pre- 97
use, 37
" sent-day
Guide," 13, 24, 30 SECRETAIRES, 101
room described, 32 Settees, 39, 46, 63, 73, 113
hall chairs, 26 Shearer's Book of Prices, 13, 47,
settees, 33, 39 95
sideboards, 35, 39 Sheraton, birth of, 79
stools, 30 cabinets, 102, 105
wardrobes, 39 cane-work described, 42
window seats, 3 1 64 , at Carlton House, 91
Honeysuckle ornament, 64, 68, claw tables, 1 1 1
" 1
97 clocks in Drawing Book,'
Hope, Thomas, Design Book, 92
121 death of, 82
Horsehair coverings, 31 "Dictionary," 42, 90
 INDEX 135
Sheraton " Drawing Book," 13, Straining-rails on chairs, 45
76, 82, 87, 93 Suffolk chairs, 128
dressing tables and glasses, Summer beds, 89
98, 106, 108, 112 Summer-house seats, 20, 23
elliptic beds, 92
" TAMBOUR-WORK shutters, 49,
Encyclopaedia," 13, 80, 1 10
90, 120 Toilet glasses and tables, 106,
furniture, recent prices, 97 108, 112
home life of, 79 Tottenham Court Road furniture,
knife-boxes, no
late chairs, 126 Tools, dated, at Victoria and
painted furniture, 99 Albert Museum, 28
scientific and classical pose Tools used in furniture-making,
of, 77 28
secretaires, 101 Tracery doors for furniture, 47,
settees, 114 57
side-tables and sideboards, Trafalgar period furniture, 120
93, 97, 108, 1 10
State beds, 92 WARDROBES, 39
summer beds, 89 Wash-stands (see Basin stands)
tables, 99, 108, in Wedgwood plaques, 101, 105
" Wheatear decoration attributed
tallboys^" 1 10
wash-stands, 94, 112 to Shearer, 51
work-box, 109 Wheeler, Mr. G. Owen, on Ince
work-table, 109 and Mayhew, 16
Shield -back chairs, 25, 31, 44 on Shearer, 48
Sideboards and side-tables, 92, Window stools, 31, 64
97, 108, no Wing chairs, 30
Soane Museum, 63 Woods employed in Sheraton
Stoner, Mr. George, fine satin- period, 56
wood furniture belonging to, Writing-tables, 36, 48, 50, 54,
99. "4 101

WOODS AND SONS, LT1>., PRINTERS, LONDON, N. I.

\
NK
Reveirs-Hopkins, Alfred
2529 Edward
R4B The Sheraton period
1919

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