extreme. To this period belong the introduction of painting on furniture, and the re-introduction of inlay and veneer, also such inventions as what is known as the Hepplewhite sideboard, and, in chairs, the camel' and 'ladder-back,' the 'dished' seat and the Marlborough' leg, that is the tapering square leg ending in the 'spade foot,' which latter had become almost universal for several kinds of furniture before the publication of Hepplewhite's book.

Ascribing dates, therefore, to pieces of furniture made in the latter half of the eighteenth century is, though difficult, by no means a matter of mere guesswork. The first half, however, is immensely more uncertain, as our knowledge of it is exceedingly fragmentary, and, for the most part, is confined to actual pieces of which all record has been lost. Here we are helped to some extent by the 'Director,' in which the typical cabriole leg ending in a claw-and-ball foot has no place. We are thus led to the conclusion that they had ceased to be made some time before; say by 1750 as a latest possible, and 1745 as a more likely date. From the immense number of these still in existence it is evident that the period to which they belong that of Chippendale's second style-was of considerable duration, probably twenty years or more. Reasoning on this assumption, we should expect to find typical Chippendale' chairs about 1725, which have no marked leanings to Queen Anne design, and this is borne out by the one actual date of which I am aware. For this we are indebted to American research. In The Furniture of our Ancestors' a chair is illustrated which is known to have been brought over from England in 1727, and which shows no traces of the transition period. It is always comforting to find facts which fit in with one's pre-conceived ideas; but it is well to remember how few have been

rescued from the past. At any time discoveries might be made of far more value and accuracy than any included in our present knowledge, but until something of the kind happens, I think that Chippendale's middle period may be taken as, approximately, from 1725 to 1745-50.

The transition period is even more vague, and the wrong date (1720) given for the introduction of mahogany into this country has, I think, been responsible for some of the errors concerning it. Considering the evidence of the American chair it would be excessively unlikely that this style lasted, except in isolated instances, after 1725 or a year or two later, and it is almost impossible for the bulk of the mahogany furniture with these characteristics to have been manufactured in five or six years. knew anything definite as to Chippendale's birth, and when he began to work (knowledge which may come in the future), it would at least be a guide. At present it is supposed that he began his career as a carver some four or five years before 1720, and, though this rests greatly on assumption, it is inherently likely.

If we

On the other hand it is quite possible that we, looking back on this time of which practically only one name has come down to us, may magnify Thomas Chippendale's influence on the other workers unduly. We know, from the fact of his name having been preserved as the maker of such evidently early pieces as No. 20, that he must almost at once have attained to fame and popularity, but we also know that of all the eighteenth-century designers he was the man who could most readily adapt the ideas of others to his own purposes, and better them in the using. The initiation, therefore, of the first Chippendale periodthe transition from Queen Anne to Chippendale-may have been before he could handle a chisel as a master craftsman.

These, then, are the lines on which the early exhibits have been dated. The rules,

I

I

such as they are, belong to the rough-andready order, and, like everything else that is in its infancy, they are useful till something better takes their place. At present they are near enough for practical purposes. should be sorry, for instance, to say that the Bury chair (No. 20) was not manufactured as early as 1716, or as late as 1724, but I think it may be taken as all but certain that it was made somewhere between these dates, unless (which is unlikely when we remember it was by Chippendale) it was specially ordered at a later period from an old design.

This chair is not only of interest because it is the work of Chippendale, but because it is an admirable example of the mixture of the two styles. The height of the back in proportion to the legs, as well as its shape and treatment, are all suggestive of very The back strong Queen Anne influence. legs, instead of ending in the modified form seen in Nos. 96 and 110, have, like the eagle arm-chair (16),1 a pure Queen Anne 'club foot.' The ornaments at the top of the legs have also the typical curve of the former period, though a pleasanter sweep of the cabriole leg. If this is compared with the treatment of the same line in a Queen Anne chair, such as No. 16, it will at once be seen what Chippendale was doing His chair has even at this early date. what might be called an upstanding dignity, while the other is clumsier and suggestive of broken knees. Anyone who has given time and thought to the study of Thomas Chippendale cannot avoid being impressed with the fact that he was a reflex of the work going on around him. Even in 1754, when he had attained to the top of the tree in his trade, he understood himself so well that he made no claim, as others did, to striking originality of design. What he said he could do (and what, most undoubtedly, he could do) was to improve and refine He never had, like the present taste.'

1 Reproduced on page 487.

Adam and Sheraton, anything new to preach; not, at least, so new.

Except in very isolated instances it is not by leaps and bounds that perfection is attained. Everything that is good is the outcome of evolution; the quicker, the more liable to mistake; the slower, the more certain. It is impossible to build a Great Eastern that will be of any use to the world without a knowledge, gained by gradual developments, of the primary necessities. The surest road to success may seem the slowest, and the 'text' which Mr. Kipling puts in the mouth of the dying ship-builder is as applicable to art as to ships, 'Just keep your light so shining a little in front of the next,' and this is what Chippendale did. Even when he appeared to follow, he really led.

There is nothing more certain than the fact that every great genius of the world has said or done the obvious, or perhaps we should say what became the obvious the moment it was arrived at. It was so with Newton and gravitation, or with, to take a far smaller example, Columbus and the egg. There have been men, and great men, who could not discriminate between genius and the commonplace. 'I could write like Shakespeare if I only had the mind,' said Wordsworth. What a p-pity you haven't got the m-mind,' replied Charles Lamb.

At first sight it may seem but a small thing to take an existing chair leg, knock half-an-inch off here, put it on there, and leave the rest the same; but it is just by simple things of this kind that we can tell real genius from the imitation.

As to the authenticity of the chair, though it rests now on tradition, I have no doubt whatever. If nothing existed of the transition period, and there were a student of Chippendale great enough to understand him, he might have outrivalled the feat of building up an animal from a single bone, and given us something appreciably like this very chair in

an attempt to depict the lines on which Chippendale, as a young man, probably worked. The shell pattern, while absent in the legs, is accentuated in the back, though treated in a distinctly different way, and the cupid's-bow shaped top rail of his later periods is only in its infancy.

The chair is of a pattern and date different from those of the famous settee made for the same family, though that is also an early piece of Chippendale's work, the two pieces illustrating points of the different styles. The Queen Anne designers were fond of convolutions suggestive of the capability of the material being rolled up like parchment; those of the Chippendale period again went back to something like the Celtic idea and represented wood as if it were rope or ribbon, capable of being looped as in No. 110, or waved and tied into knots as in No. 53. The settee alluded to is by no means the first of the former of these two devices, and, even if the chair we are considering should be the last of the older method, there must naturally be some time between their respective creations; a fact which is chiefly interesting as showing that, even in those early days, Thomas Chippendale could keep his customers.

The lion' settee, No. 109,2 though even more in accordance with Queen Anne design, is also of the transition period. The lions' heads in the terminals of the arms of all such pieces as I have seen resemble snakes rather than lions; but the Queen Anne designers, much in the same spirit as that of the artist who wrote below his work, 'This is a lion,' obligingly placed an unmistakable portrait of the king of beasts on the upper part of the front legs, and Chippendale followed their example, that is if I am right in attributing this piece to him. For this there would seem to be good reason, as the back is identical with the Bury chair. • Reproduced on page 487.

In both the outer curves of the top rail are made higher than they would have been in pure Queen Anne, while the convoluted terminals render them still more unlike. It is possible, indeed, that these same terminals may have been the first step to the cupid's-bow shape, which became practically universal very soon after. It is possible that some follower of Chippendale may have made this settee, but it is nearly certain that Chippendale did not copy the chair from it. By people who did not take the trouble to understand him he has been accused of many faults, but no one has ever supposed him capable of such barefaced robbery as this would have been, while at that early period he could not have been so much copied as he was later. I take it, then, that the settee may, with comparative certainty, be attributed to him.

I speak of this piece as a 'settee,' that being the ordinary term employed in this country at the present day, and because I object to the trans-Atlantic 'double chair,' which is evidently incorrect, for if sawn through the middle there would not be two complete chairs. If a name must be employed to differentiate between these and those with more splats, I should greatly prefer to revive the old and now forgotten term of 'Darby and Joan seats.'

Plain

At one time there were only two names for eighteenth-century furniture. mahogany was 'Chippendale,' and inlaid or decorated Sheraton.' Now we are inclined to a similar broad treatment of an intricate subject by dubbing walnut 'Queen Anne,'and mahogany 'Chippendale,' whereas, as a matter of fact, the woods, as well as the styles, overlapped. Nor are these two pieces dated 1720 because of the candle-box story. There are few things more misleading than the myths which surround the history of furniture, and this particular one is of the worst. The story rested, as far as can be discovered,

entirely on tradition for seventy years or more, and, even if Dr. Gibbon did have a candle-box made from it, the details related concerning it are quite unbelievable. As a matter of fact Sir Walter Raleigh discovered the wood, and in all probability used it. A chair was made of it for William III, and, as shown in Dr. Lyon's 'Colonial Furniture,' it was in use in America considerably before 1720.

It is impossible at present to fix an exact date for its general use in this country, but it was almost certainly employed by our cabinet-makers some time before the unhistoric candle-box. Tradition, even family tradition, must be taken with a considerable modicum of salt. A lady told me the other day that her Sheraton chairs had been in her family for over a century and a half-that is, about forty or fifty years before Sheraton formed his style, and considerably before he was born.

A still earlier date must be assigned to No. 16-an ‘eagle' chair of pure Queen Anne pattern.3 In this the terminals of the arms are carved into representations of eagles' heads, very possibly from a mistaken idea of the origin and meaning of the claw-and-ball foot. This is an old Chinese symbol, and is supposed to represent a dragon's foot holding a pearl. The design was brought home by the old Dutch traders, and though it was copied both then and later with considerable accuracy, the signification was lost. Even in its latest stages the resemblance between it and the Chinese drawings of dragons' feet is unmistakable, but it has not one point in common with the feet and talons of the eagle. This is a small matter, and great blame can scarcely be bestowed on the mistake when in the best of our salerooms to-day 'eagle's claw and ball' is a recognised phrase, and, when the heads in the terminals are turned inwards, as in Nos. 4 and 96, I have even seen them

• Reproduced on page 487.

catalogued as 'parrots' heads.' In any case the old designers acted up to their lights. When the eagle is represented on the arms the claw and ball is used, while the paw and ball is substituted in the case of the lion chairs.

The state chairs of the eighteenth century shown in this collection, and lent by various London Companies, are very interesting as specimens of workmanship; but from the fact that they were designed with a view to extra magnificence rather than household use, most of them are not so representative of the periods in which they were made as more ordinary specimens.

Where the fundamental idea is to attain either the picturesque or the dignified, the artist naturally turns to antiquity, and where he does not do so he loses, so far as his own time is concerned. Gainsborough's portraits, which were absolute transcripts, in such matters as costume and hairdressing, of the fashion of the moment, all seem picturesque to us, but they could not have been so to the society woman of the time five years after they were painted. This is probably one of the chief reasons of the certainty with which contemporary opinion answered the difficult question of whether he or Sir Joshua was the greater

man.

be

Reverence for the antique in contradistinction to what is merely old-fashioned is inherent in the human race and may traced to the earliest dawn of history. It enters into everything where a more than ordinarily high standard is is required. Modern colloquialisms are good enough for everyday use; but if they were introduced into the service at St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey even the most up-todate would consider them but little person removed from blasphemy. In a chair, therefore, made primarily with the purpose of adding dignity to an office, it is by no means astonishing to find older styles in evidence, but rather, as will be seen from