March, 1911 
back” or “ladder back,” of which Chippendale was so fond. 
In his book the model appears with square legs as in the 
“ladder-back” settee, shown in Fig. 3. 
Of all varieties of chair, Chippendale’s favorite was the 
“Ribband Back,” in which the twisted ribbon forms the 
.chief motive of decoration. It is open tied in a bow form. 
The dimensions of this chair he gave as _ follows: 
Length of front leg, 19 inches; rail of seat (upholstered 
with small nails touching one another), 2234 inches; seat, 
18 inches square, and the back from seat to top rail, 22 or 
23 inches high. “If the seats are covered with red mo- 
rocco,’ Chippendale adds, “they will have a fine effect.”’ 
In not one of Chippendale’s drawings does the ball-and- 
claw foot appear. The nearest approach to it is a lion’s 
claw or paw, on which the foot of chair, Fig. 8, is pat- 
terned. He was fond of the straight, square leg, per- 
haps, because he wanted all the 
interest concentrated on the elab- 
orate carving or graceful tracery 
of the back. This straight and 
square leg was often carved with 
Gothic or Chinese fret-work, as in 
Fig. 10 and Fig. 12, or a chiite of 
husks. We also find the cabriole 
leg ending in a kind of scroll (Fig. 
13 and Fig. 14), on which is a 
leg formed of a bunch of reeds 
wrapped with a ribbon; a leg on 
which a dragon Is crawling, carved 
in high relief, a dolphin’s head 
used for the foot while his tail is 
carved on the cabriole curve, and 
a leg resting upon a shell. 
There were three styles in 
vogue in Chippendale’s time—the 
French. which included the Re- 
gency and the more elaborate 
Louis XV; the Gothic; and the 
Chinese. All three of these ate 
represented in Chippendale’s de- 
sign, with equal enthusiasm. 
Sometimes they are curiously com- 
bined. 
In 1756, two years after the ap- 
pearance of Chippendale book, 
Isaac Ware, complaining of “‘the 
degeneracy of modern taste,”’ says: 
“Tt is our misfortune to see at this 
time an unmeaning scrawl of C’s 
inverted, turned and hooked to- 
gether, take the place of Greek 
and Roman elegance, even in our 
most expensive decorations, and 
it is usual because it is French; and 
fashion commands that whatever is French is to be ad- 
mired as fine.” { 
Of the Gothic taste he wrote in the same year: ‘“The 
Gothic is distinguished from the antique architecture by its 
ornaments being whimsical and its profiles incorrect. The 
inventors of it probably thought they exceeded the Grecian 
method, and some of late have seemed, by their fondness 
for Gothic edifices, to be of the same opinion; but this 
was but a caprice, and, to the credit of our taste, is going 
out of fashion again as hastily as it came in.” 
One of the leaders of the French and Gothic style in 
England was Batty Langley, many of whose designs for 
buffets, chimney-pieces, cisterns, clocks, and table-frames 
are “after the French manner” and whose Gothic Archi- 
tecture, published in 1742, had great influence in establish- 
ing the fashionable interest in Gothic. It was in 1750 that 
Walpole, having got possession of Strawberry Hill, wrote: 
Fig. 2—Mirror frame of the inverted curve decorated 
with leaves and flowers 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 87 
‘“T am going to build a little Gothic castle.” As for the 
Chinese taste, it had long been a craze. Excessive use of 
Chinese subjects and monkeys formed a characteristic fea- 
ture of the Regency style, and Chinese designs had been 
produced by Watteau, Aubert, Fraisse, La Joti, and other 
French designers and artists; while in England Sir Will- 
iam Chambers, Johnson, Edwards and Darly, Halfpenny 
and others published books of design showing Chinese tem- 
ples, arches, garden-seats, bridges, etc. 
Chippendale’s pieces in the French, Gothic or Chinese 
taste, were, therefore, neither caprices nor innovations. 
Moreover, he did not hesitate to borrow, or steal, directly 
from Meissonier. ‘‘A Design for a Sofa for a Grand 
Apartment’? appears among Meissonier’s designs as a 
canapé for the Grand Marshal of Poland, dated 1735. 
Chippendale added a little more carving. He also added 
a little extra carving to a chair 
designed by Meissonier in 1735 
for Madame de Brezenval, which 
he quietly appropriates and labels 
euigenchs schatne 1 Meissonier’s 
books of ornaments were also 
drawn upon by Chippendale, for 
icicles, dripping water, cascades, 
swags of bell-flowers and laurel, 
shell-work, fountains, balustrades, 
acanthus leaves, fruits, animals, 
birds, human beings, feathers, 
vegetables, fragmentary peristyle 
effects and spiky ornaments. 
So familiar is he with this great 
French designer that there is 
some basis to the theory that 
Matthias Darly, who engraved 
the plates for Chippendale’s book 
and who lived in Paris, was really 
the author of the designs and 
Chippendale the  cabinet-maker 
and carver only. Be this as it 
may, what passes under the name 
of the Chippendale style is a fan- 
tastic combination and jumble of 
the French, Gothic and Chinese 
fancies of the period, to which 
Chippendale’s contribution was 
excessive carving. He seems to 
have cared more for carving and 
ornamentation than for form; and 
elaborate as some of his carvings 
are, he constantly suggests that 
his pieces can be improved as to 
“beauty and enrichment”’;-and he 
often recommends additional or- 
naments. Chippendale had very 
little affection for either mahogany, or walnut, these woods 
were far too sombre, and so he preferred furniture made 
of soft wood ‘“‘japanned or painted” in bright colors and 
with all the ornamental parts heavily gilt. He was also 
fond of rosewood; but brightened it with gilt ornaments. 
Chippendale had-also a great love of upholstery and gave 
explicit directions with regard to the looping of curtains, 
the making of rosettes and arrangement of the draperies 
for dresing-tables. Some of his beds are most elaborate; 
and the cornices are supplied with an intricate arrange- 
ment of laths and pulleys by which the curtains are drawn 
up, and, as the curtains and valances are required to fall in 
symmetrical festoons and loops, Chippendale enters into 
detailed descriptions of the mechanical devices. An idea of 
Chippendale’s taste in beds may be gained from his descrip- 
tion of a “Couch with Canopy.” Of this he says: ‘The 
curtains must be made to draw up in Drapery or to let down, 
