88 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
when it is occasionally converted into a bed. This sort of 
couch is very fit for alcoves, or such deep recesses as are 
It may also be placed at 
often seen in large apartments. 
the end of a long gallery. 
If the curtains and valances 
are adorned with a large 
gold fringe and tassels and 
the ornaments gilt with 
burnished gold, it will look 
very grand. ‘The crane at 
the top of the canopy is the 
emblem of care and watch- 
fulness, which, I think, is 
not unbecoming in a place 
of rest. The length of the 
bed cannot be less than six 
feet in the clear; but may 
be more if required. The 
breadth is three feet, or 
more, in proportion to the 
length. The height may 
be determined by the place 
it is to stand in.” 
In a Chippendale room 
the bed curtains and window curtains were made of the 
same materials and the seats of the chairs were covered 
with the same. Chippendale also recommended leather 
seats for his chairs and liked red morocco. Beautiful tap- 
estry and silks bearing designs from /Esop’s fables were 
also used, especially for the “French chairs.” 
Cornices for bedsteads and windows attracted his inter- 
est and also frames for console-tables and mirrors. Here 
the carver exercised his most exuberant fancy and displayed 
his favorite ornaments, which were the Chinese pagoda, 
bells, mandarin, and mandarin’s hat, canopy with bells at 
the corners, monkey and monkey’s head, Chinese umbrella, 
fox, long-tailed and long-billed bird, crow, boys blowing 
horns, eagle, horn, pipes, violin, rising sun, fluttering rib- 
bons, dragon, dolphin, cockatrice, pine cone, the inverted 
C, the endive leaf, the quatrefoil, the dog, the lion, the 
masque, spiky thorn, flowers of all kinds, acanthus, fret, 
shell, dripping-water, ram’s head holding swags, the ca- 
ducens, serpent among flowers, etc. Two characteristic 
mirror frames appear in Figs. 1 and 2. The former, 
a mantel mirror in three parts, shows a graceful use of 
the broken curve, or C, and the latter exhibits the inverted 
C’s beautifully decorated with leaves and flowers, while 
the top is surmounted by a Chinese pagoda and two fan- 
Fig. 3—A ladder-back settee with square legs of which Chippendale 
was so fond 
March, 1911 
tastic birds. As was natural during a period when the 
Chinamania was still vital, Chippendale designed many 
‘shelves, cabinets and cases in the “Chinese taste,” espe- 
cially for the exhibition of 
choice pieces of porcelain. 
These are composed of 
fret-work, pagodas, man- 
darines, bells and roofs, or 
leaves with turned up 
edges, mingled with scrolls, 
rock-and-shell work and 
dripping water. The glass 
doors are often enriched 
with ornate vines and flow- 
ers, bells and mandarin 
hats. These pieces of fur- 
niture were gilt, painted 
and japanned, or painted 
and partly gilt. Tables 
for the library also claimed 
his attention; but, as a 
rule, they were rather sim- 
ple. A plain table with 
drawers served for the 
sideboard. Tables with the drop-leaf were also made 
during this period, of the model shown in Fig. 5, a hand- 
some specimen with openwork fret-work, which gives a 
charming sense of lightness to the four square piece. 
The tripod tea-table was always a success in the hands 
of Chippendale. Two of the graceful ‘“‘tip and turn” tables, 
the tops of which can be made to rotate and to bend down- 
wards, appear in Figs. 4 and 6. These are ornamented 
with what modern dealers like to term the ‘‘pie-crust”’ 
edge. It must be remembered that Chippendale’s book 
supplied patterns for gentlemen to select from and other 
cabinet-makers to execute. Consequently a great deal of 
furniture was made by contemporary workmen on both 
sides of the Atlantic. Much “Chippendale” furniture was 
produced in Ireland, and not a little in the colonies of Amer- 
ica. For instance, Mr. John Brinner arrived in New York 
in 1762 with six skilled workmen from London and estab- 
lished himself at the Sign of the Chair, opposite Flatten 
Barrack Hill, on Broadway, and advertised that he could 
make nearly every article that we find pictured in Chip- 
pendale’s book, including the heavily draped bedsteads and 
furniture in the Chinese and Gothic taste; and a little later 
we find Joseph Cox from London settled at the Royal Bed 
in Dock Street, and afterwards in Wall Street, making 
Fig. 
4—A tip and turn tea-table in 
standing position 
Fig. 5—A table with open work and lattice fret 
sold for $500 
Fig. 6—A tip and turn tea-table 
with pie-crust edge 
