The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director

Thomas Chippendale

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780486140056

Thomas Chippendale (1718–79) was the most famous and most skilled of England's master cabinet-makers. So synonymous with excellence in design and craftsmanship was he that his name has been given to the most splendid period of English furniture design.
In 1774, Chippendale issued a catalogue of all his designs, a magnificent compilation of 160 engraved plates representing the prevailing furniture styles, particularly the French (Louis XXV), Gothic, and Chinese-manner pieces for which he was best known. The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, the most important and thorough catalogue of furniture designs that had ever been published in England, was enormously influential, spreading quickly throughout the Continent and the colonies and guiding the style and construction of furniture everywhere. A second edition was formed the following year, and a third in 1762. Today this classic collection is a very rare and highly valued work.
This volume is an unaltered and unabridged republication of the 1762 edition of The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director. The articles of furniture depicted are extremely varied: chairs, sofas, canopy and dome beds, window cornices, breakfast tables, shaving tables, commodes, chamber organs, cabinets, candle stands, cisterns, chimney pieces, picture frames, frets, and other decorations. The plates contain elegant drawings that show the unique combination of solidity of construction and lightness and grace that was the Chippendale trademark, along with many construction diagrams, elevations, and enlargements of moldings and other details. In addition to the plates, this volume also includes a supplement of photographs of sixteenth-century Chippendale-style pieces, including some executed by Chippendale, complete captions to the photos, and a short biographical sketch of Chippendale by N. I. Bienenstock, editor of Furniture World.
The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director is an indispensable guide for antiquarians, furniture dealers, and collectors, and a treasury of ideas for today's designers. Art lovers and other readers will also find it a delightful browsing book.

PREFACE

OF all the ARTS which are either improved or ornamented by Architecture, that of CABINET-MAKING is not only the most useful and ornamental, but capable of receiving as great Assistance from it as any whatever. I have therefore prefixed to the following Designs a short Explanation of the Five Orders. Without an Acquaintance with this Science, and fome Knowledge of the Rules of Perspective, the Cabinet-Maker cannot make the Designs of his Work intelligible, nor shew, in a little Compass, the whole Conduct and Effect of the Piece. These, therefore, ought to be carefully studied by every one who would excel in this Branch, since they are the very Soul and Basis of his Art.

THE Title-Page has already called the. following Work, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, as being calculated to assist the one in the Choice, and the other in the Execution of the Designs; which are so contrived, that if no one Drawing should singly answer the Gentleman’s Taste, there will yet be found a Variety of Hints, sufficient to construct a new one.

I HAVE been encouraged to begin and carry on this Work not only by Persons of Distinction, but of eminent Taste for Performances of this Sort; who have, upon many Occasions, signified some Surprize and Regret, that an Art capable of so much Perfection and Resinement, should be executed with so little Propriety and Elegance. How far the following Sheets may remove a Complaint, which I am afraid is not altogether groundlefs, the judicious Reader will determine: I hope, however, the Novelty, as well as the Usefulness of the Performance, will make fome Atonement for its Faults and Imperfections. I am sensible, there are too many to be found in it ; for I frankly consess, that in executing many of the Drawings, my Pencil has but faintly copied out those Images that my Fancy suggested ; and had they not been published till I could have pronounced them perfect, perhaps they had never seen the Light. Neverthelesss, I was not upon that Account afraid to let them go abroad, for I have been told, that the greatest Masters of every other Art have laboured under the same Difficulty.

I AM not afraid of the Fate an Author usually meets with on his first Appearance from a Set of Criticks who are never wanting to shew their Wit and Malice on the Performances of others: I shall repay their Censures with Contempt. Let them unmolested deal out their pointless Abuse, and convince the World they have neither Good-nature to commend, Judgment to correct, nor Skill to execute what they find Fault with.

THE Correction of the judicious and Impartial I shall always receive with Dissidence in my own Abilities, and Respect to theirs. But though the following Designs were more perfect than my Fondnefs for my own Offspring could ever suppose them, I should yet be far from expecting the united Approbation of ALL those whose Sentiments have an undoubted Claim to be regarded ; for a thousand accidental Circumstances may concur in dividing the Opinions of the most improved Judges, and the most unprejudiced will find it difficult to disengage himself from a partial Affection to some particular Beauties, of which the general Course of his Studies, or the peculiar Cast of his Temper may have rendered him most sensible. The Mind, when pronouncing Judgment upon any Work of Taste and Genius, is apt to decide of its Merit according as those Circumstances which fhe most admires either prevail, or are deficient....

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• THOMAS CHIPPENDALE