For the benefit of those few of my gentle readers who don’t know, I reentered academia in the late 90’s at University College London, one of the constituent colleges of the University of London. Categorized by UCL as a mature student, I found that ‘mature’ was considered any one mid 20’s, returning to uni after a few years away. Some considerable distance from my 2^nd decade, upon returning my maturity was of the superannuated variety.

Jeremy Bentham’s ‘auto-icon’

Nevertheless, I found, as I still do find, UCL famous for its warmth and inclusivity. If ever one was concerned about British reserve, let me tell you it is absent at UCL, formed in the early 19^th century, as one might not know, as a dissenting option for those free thinkers who might have found the still operating medieval rubrics of Oxford and Cambridge stultifying. In the best tradition, UCL is yet sufficiently quirky, with the mummified remains of founder Jeremy Bentham still prominently on display.

Wilkins Building

Now I’ve made a pitch for UCL whilst simultaneously dishing Oxbridge, the matter at hand. Gay liberation was in its infancy in my original college career, but burgeoning when I entered UCL, so I thought it would be fun to express myself therein by involvement with what I took to be the college’s active gay student’s organization. I have to say, parenthetically, that I had assumed walking around during my initial interviews and first few weeks of classes, my never-failing gaydar was working at full strength. Mind you, I had to be circumspect at home about this, as my partner Keith McCullar had regularly opined my desire to return to uni was driven in part as an opportunity to pick up on what he termed ‘the young ones’. No, it wasn’t and isn’t but more on that later.

Bloomsbury Building

Even just a few years ago, no one used the now ubiquitous albeit fluidly changing abbreviation LGBTQ+, and the notice posted on the board at UCL’s Bloomsbury Building early in my renewed career announced the gay men’s group for an evening a few days hence, starting at 8PM, and I looked forward to attending. A bit of background for those of you not in the know- gay culture in England did then, and mostly does now, consists of socializing in pubs. Indeed, most social life in England does, with everyone loyal to their ‘local’, and bonding takes place around the consumption of beer. I knew all that prior to my attendance at the gay men’s group at UCL, but although I didn’t know anything about any upcoming agenda, and although there was nothing of the sort noted in the notice I’d read, assumed there would be some kind of program. I was wrong. I showed up, and paid £5 to a young chap I had never seen before to get in to a small-ish function room in the Bloomsbury Building. There were perhaps 20 other young guys there, none of whom I had ever seen before who though unknown to me seemed well known to one another. Cheap lager was available for purchase at the rate of £1 per bottle. Did I say ‘cheap’? I should have written ‘crap’. But I had a bottle all the same, sussing out that here, too, pub etiquette applied. I did see a fellow from my department who was there, and I tried to chat with him- not chat him up, but just tried to engage in polite conversation. I have to say, he was as uncomfortable as if I had outed him not just in front of his Tory family, but from the lectern during high mass. So much for that, so I wandered about the edges, looking for someone to talk to, as it was apparent that this get together was really no more than a piss-up.

I have to say, there exist gay men, and then there are very gay men, and although I have never considered myself any paragon of butchness, I would have been considered so in that company. ‘Nelly’ is not a term much heard these days, but I can think of no other that describes the young chaps who were there. In the fulness of time, though, there were a few other gents who came in that were at least more my age, so thinking that, though none looked familiar, at least common life experiences brought by a commonality of age might work for a conversation starter. Was I wrong! Pub etiquette, I found, was in this instance combined with gay pub etiquette, by which I mean, small talk was automatically assumed by the conversant to be chatting up and the mature attendees save my own self were there to shall we say plight their troth with the young ones. I was then an odd man in the course of the evening, and as odd man I moved myself out.

I did not know then, nor do I know now, who it was who organized any of this, but there was in a few weeks another notice posted for yet another gay men’s evening, and silly me, decided to go again. Actually, this was a decision made following some bit of reflection, thinking that perhaps as the first event was early in the term, it was just for social enjoyment, and any business would then get underway at a subsequent event. I also assumed that attendance would be greater, again thinking that the student community would have found their feet after a few weeks, and then be attending such like as the gay men’s evening. Also, in the finding of the feet category, I had inadvertently found shall we say activity of a salacious kind in select bogs at UCL. Although I do know enough about English culture to know that ‘cottaging’ in the Gent’s loo, then as now is a favored activity amongst gay English men- I thought if it was taking place with such shall we say abandon at UCL, it might be thought to at some point swell the attendance at the gay men’s beano. It was also, I have to say, a relief to find the welter of this kind of ‘society’ a confirmation of my own gaydar, questioning it as I had done based on the sparse attendance at the first gay men’s function.

Again, on all counts I was wrong. The second get together was the same as the first- same entrance fee, same crappy beer, same number, and mix, of guys, same no agenda. I stayed maybe an hour, left, and never returned- not in my remaining tenure at UCL.

The upshot of all this is, I never at any time felt demeaned, excluded, or otherwise dismissed whilst at UCL, and I must say, the department of the history of art knew me well, and knew my partner Keith McCullar well. Keith was at every department function, became friends, and is still friends, with my favourite tutor and thesis supervisor. There was nothing closeted about our relationship, but it was for all I knew a matter of indifference. Scholarship was what was taken seriously, then as now.

I write all this apropos the current edition of Portico, the UCL alumni magazine, and its brief squib on LGBTQ+ alumni. Interestingly, save one woman who read anthropology in the late 70’s and didn’t come out until recently the other three contributors were recent male graduates. All three of them cited UCL as providing a safe environment in which to come out- of note, though, it was the academic environment within the disciplines they chose to study that was welcoming, not any sort of auxiliary organization. I cite this not by way of saying that UCL failed to provide any particular outlet for the gay community, but as with my own experience, the culture and ethos of the college as a whole functioned as an outlet for the LGBTQ+, and don’t I know this firsthand. How much more inclusive could any institution be, than that something specific for gay students is hardly existent because it is- wait for it- irrelevant. And irrelevance of a positive kind.

And so it seems still to be. As mentioned, I was prompted to write this blog entry based on the recent print edition of Portico, which also contained an email address for the UCL Alumni Association for the establishment of a gay alumni group. I wanted to provide a livelink to the online edition of Portico and in particular to the article about gay alumni. Nothing exists of the most recent Portico online, however, with UCL per usual bringing up the rear in terms of 21^st century methods of communication. That sounds snide, but frankly, as with other bits of quirkiness, I find it strangely endearing. It might be that some benighted soul in the alumni office inadvertently delegated the task of establishing online communication to Jeremy Bentham. Even so, I did respond to the printed email address indicating affirmatively my interest in forming or at least being included in a gay alumni organization. I have yet to hear back, so presume Squire Bentham is slow to respond, or more probably the establishment of such a group is not a high priority. Indifference? I would prefer to think that it is, in the best UCL tradition, yet an example of positive irrelevance.

TEFAF has announced it will no longer utilize dealers and auction experts in its vetting process at its marque fair in Maastricht and its spinoff in New York, instead using museum curators, conservators, and independent scholars. ‘Independent’ is the key word here, as the presumption is that what still exists of an old boy network within the trade is at odds with the independently objective judgment that scrupulous vetting requires.

For us, and indeed for any other member of the accredited trade in art and antiques, participation in any fair is dependent on vetting, where material is examined for authenticity primarily by experts drawn from the trade. I am not aware of any dealer like us who would participate in any fair that is not vetted. Indeed, the criticism that is generally leveled at the virtual fairs that online platforms provide is that the material offered is not vetted, with those in the accredited trade posting material of quality and authenticity that can be vouched for, cheek by jowl with, shall we say, something less than equivalent quality and of questionable authenticity.

In fairness, unaccredited dealers who offer their gear either online or at unvetted fairs may not necessarily know if a piece constitutes the real deal or not. Part of the process of accreditation is dependent on the assessment of a dealer’s knowledge in his field of specialization, and not just the quality of his stock. He is, then, obliged of course to comply with a strict code of conduct, accurately describing the material on offer, including detailing any restoration. Then, of course, there are the schlockmeisters, whose objective it is to willfully misrepresent what it is they have to a gullible buyer. The ignorant dealer and the shady dealer both offering something other than the actual, both represent pretty much the same peril to a prospective buyer.

Even within the accredited trade, there does exist, as mentioned above, an old boy network with relationships established within the trade, where dealers whose knowledge and expertise are otherwise without question will perhaps overlook something- a significant restoration, a possible dating error, a specious attribution- if the dealer’s material being vetted is a buddy.

Or, on the contrary, if a dealer is not amongst the favored few, his material might be subjected to inordinate scrutiny, resulting sometimes in requirements to label his material with disclaimers and caveats that make the piece so labeled as not just unsaleable but tainted, and simultaneously tainting the reputation of the dealer. Unfortunately, we have first-hand knowledge of this kind of thing, with a fine quality piece we had at a fair vetted out, only to determine that a member of the vetting committee had a similar piece he wanted to have on offer, bashing our item to remove competition. A sidebar- in spite of being so angry at the time I nearly had a stroke, the nefarious dealer with whom we had this contretemps has recently gone out of business. The slimy bastard- and I mean this in the nicest possible way. We are, I say with some glee, still in business.

Unfortunately, TEFAF is sadly faced with trying to get ahead of recurrent and unsettling stories, some of them very, very prominent, about dealers well-established in the trade and prominent in very many TEFAF and similarly vaunted fairs, who’ve in the last few years sold questionable, albeit costly, pieces to both private and institutional collectors. I’ve written not so long ago about the vicissitudes of the centuries old Galerie Kraemer, a fixture in the Paris trade and a TEFAF darling, and one is reminded of the cobbled together horrors with high profile ‘attributions’ associated with the Pimlico Road dealer, the late and not entirely lamented John Hobbs.

What’s equally unfortunate, though, is the method by which TEFAF seeks to bring probity to the vetting process. By in large, I’d say that most museum curators and conservators will bring a certain amount of dispassion to the vetting process, without any of the ‘one hand washing the other’ obligation or competitive enmity dealers might bring as baggage. What I wouldn’t say, though, is that these experts are expert in anything beyond their own institutional collections. Dealers, and I include myself, look at very, very many more objects in very, very many more environments than do those in the museum world- and with a stronger motivation to get things right. A dealer makes a mistake in purchasing an item for stock, and he doesn’t pay the rent, or eat, for the next month or six. The museum curator makes a mistake, and the gallery wall tag is corrected, or at worst, the ‘mistake’ goes into the back room. If my gentle readers don’t know, most fine and decorative arts museums have considerably more in the back room than they do on the gallery floor.

Something I’ve said in the last paragraph, though, isn’t strictly true. Museum curators and those from more academic disciplines removed from the commerce of the art and antiques business might ostensibly be thought dispassionate, but one needs to remember that, when given the status of panjandrums, they will talk the most insignificant point of contention to death. I well remember colloquies at University College London and the Warburg Institute and reminded of the gleeful disputes (mostly unresolved) that were only interrupted by breaks- always taken on time- for tea and biscuits. People in the world of scholarship are always ready for tea and biscuits.

And indeed, although detached from the commercial world, there exists favoritism and strong enmities between scholars within the same discipline of intensities I would match with those similar emotions manifested by art and antiques dealers.

But it appears TEFAF’s decision to revamp vetting is fait accompli, with the arguments posited by me already given a good airing within the trade. As one well established dealer had it, at the end of the day, regardless of vetting the best fairs are dependent on the knowledge and integrity of the individual dealer, and it is the dealer in whom the prospective buyer should ultimately place his trust. As the saying goes, if you don’t know your jewels, then know your jeweler.

In preparing the series this blog entry will now conclude, it has been great fun reviewing just the Chippendale material in my own library, and having the excuse then to top it up with the catalog for the Leeds City Museum exhibition curated and catalog penned by Adam Bowett and James Lomax, and the Metropolitan Museum’s Bulletin from earlier this year ‘Chippendale’s Director: A Manifesto of Furniture Design’, written by curator emeritus Morrison Heckscher.

Enjoyable, but as I conclude this series have to admit not entirely fulfilling. As I pointed out during this series and will now summarize still very, very many questions remain unanswered about Chippendale and while the current state of scholarship acknowledges a great debt to the late Christopher Gilbert with his researches contained within his compendious 1978 The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, there is not, if anything, really new to add.

What Gilbert called ‘the undiscovered years’ in Chippendale’s life pose an enormous problem in that save Chippendale’s marriage in 1747, nothing is known about his training and London life until just before the initial publication of The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director in 1754. Gilbert, Bowett & Lomax, and Heckscher all consider the preparation of the drawings and their publication a feat that, in one fell swoop, established the primacy of Chippendale in the history of the decorative arts. How it was that Chippendale arrived at this point, from whom he received his training, and how he became such an accomplished designer no one can say. Scholarship is replete with shorthandedly conclusive statements about his excellence. When his training as a draughtsman and designer is considered, if it is considered at all, it is assumed that with his proximity to the hothouse environment of the St Martin’s Lane Academy, there were plenty of opportunities for Chippendale to have learned.

Reasonable enough, but with an output sufficiently prodigious to fill the Director, it seems unreasonable that some significant production did not precede it. Heckscher indirectly takes this issue on board, arguing as he does for the drawings in the collection of the Met to be the work of Chippendale himself and witness to Chippendale’s mastery of the pencil. Perhaps. I would though be interested to pursue the work of Chippendale’s boon companion Matthias Darly, a draughtsman of established ability whose published designs predate Chippendale’s, as a collaborator whose work might have extended considerably beyond merely that of the engraver of the plates in the Director.

As much as any other significant figure in the life of Thomas Chippendale, I would like more research given over to the life of James Rannie. What was it that brought the two of them together right at the time of the preparation and publication of the first edition of the Director? While it is assumed by scholars that its publication was, through the assistance of its subscribers, a venture that was self financed, it is also known that some of these ‘subscribers’ were only named honorifically. I suspect that Rannie provided some kind of financial surety for the publication, just as he did for the substantial expansion of Chippendale’s business, with the move to large quarters in St Martin’s Lane almost simultaneous to the publication of the Director.

I suppose the greatest occurrences in Chippendale studies in the last generation are the events surrounding the almost-sale of the contents of Dumfries House. The examination of the pieces contained in this commission provided an opportunity to consider first hand and in-depth Chippendale’s output at about the time of the issuance of the Director, and also, when looking at the items produced by Scottish craftsmen to Director designs, to consider the nature and extent of Chippendale’s influence. With all that, I can’t really say that Dumfries House went any further to elucidate Chippendale’s career up to the establishment of his shop in St Martin’s Lane. It did, though, when looking at the pieces copied from the Director but known to have been completed by other craftsmen, put paid to any notion that the execution of a Director design can then be automatically attributed to the master.

Marquetry demilune commode, attributable to Thomas Chippendale the younger, Stourhead, National Trust

In spite of the fact that the Chippendale workshop carried on in one form or another for some 40 years after the death of Thomas Chippendale the elder, little attention has been paid, even during this tercentenary year, to Thomas Chippendale the younger. Some of the workshop’s greatest commissions, including the neoclassical pieces at Harewood and Stourhead were executed under the direction of Thomas Chippendale the younger- Harewood perhaps to a lesser extent, Stourhead in its entirety. The Chippendale legacy, despite this, is something that attaches to the elder, and seems always to exist as some kind of footnote to the powerful influence of the first edition of the Director.

The why of this legacy is another aspect that seems not completely resolved, as popular passion for the fanciful rococo, with the Chinoiserie and ‘Gothick’ designs always with a heavy admixture of the rococo, was a short-lived phenomenon in Britain, from around 1740 to 1760, and certainly no later than 1770. As a fashion, it was displaced thoroughly by the classical antiquarianism of Stuart, Adam, and later, Thomas Hope, and then still later the studied English Gothic antiquarianism of Pugin.

While the various revivals of interest in Chippendale proceeded apace in the 19^th century, it is surprising that interest in his mid-18^th century contemporaries did not. William Hallett, Vile & Cobb, the Linnells, and Ince and Mayhew produced some remarkable commissions during the 18^th century, enjoying royal patronage where Chippendale did not. As well, Ince and Mayhew’s 1762 Universal System of Household Furniture was as a collection of designs considered even by Chippendale of such significance it stimulated him to revise and then reissue an updated edition of the Director.

Still and all, no one has been lionized the way Chippendale has. Although a statue of Chippendale the elder adorns the façade of the V & A, one wonders whether this might not be a reflection at least in part of the esteem in which he was held in America. At the turn of the last century, very many museums, and most notably the Metropolitan Museum in New York, were at what appears their busiest in building collections of American decorative arts, and in the course of this, sought to add a bit of sophisticated lustre to pieces that were created so far from the style centres of London and the mother country. It is known that the Director did early on find its way to colonial America, as it found its way throughout Europe. It was perhaps the attempts of curators and collectors at the time to promote the mastery of American craftsmen by linking them stylistically with Chippendale. And over time, this became amongst collectors and museums a responsive chorus, trumpeting the name of Chippendale back and forth across the Atlantic. America’s prosperity in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries financed the ability of private and institutional collectors to bring back from England ‘authentic’ Chippendale pieces. ‘Authentic’ in quotes, as very much of what was given pride of place on this side of the pond has, over time, been shown to be shall we say of specious attribution, supported not by provenance but only by a resemblance, and often only the vaguest, to a Director design.

Collectors of all stripes and dealers in the accredited trade in art and antiques are generally now much, much more cautious in handing out attributions, and but with the welter of scholarship in this tercentenary year it is surprising one still hears the proper name ‘Chippendale’ used so frequently as an adjective. Watching the American ‘Antiques Roadshow’ experts who should know better yet describe almost any furniture piece from the 18^th or 19^th centuries as ‘Chippendale style’- or even more broadly and less accurately ‘Chippendale period’- if it is only possessed of a cabriole leg or ball and claw foot.

Gaucherie on TV is nothing new, though, but it was surprising to read Morrison Hecksher’s opinion that whoever made it, and presumably whenever it was made, if it is to a Chippendale design, any piece can ‘legitimately’ (his term) be called Chippendale. Heckscher’s rationale is derived from statements by Chippendale within the Director, that a cabinetmaker could mix or match various motifs within the book to achieve, depending on the skill of the cabinetmaker, a good and pleasing result. While on the one hand, there is no question Chippendale expected his designs would be cribbed, on the other, he did seek to strongly imply that the proper execution of his excellently rendered designs could be wrought with excellent results in his own workshop. In this respect, I am in slight disagreement with Heckscher- the primary purpose for the publication of the Director in 1754 was to promote the business of Thomas Chippendale and James Rannie.

Ex collection of LACMA- Chippendale, not!

It might be noted that pieces at one time cataloged as by Chippendale have been shall we say reassessed and then sold off by institutional collectors. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art was formerly possessed of and then several years ago sold off a large case piece that had just fairly recently been acquired and attributed to Thomas Chippendale. A more knowledgeable curator spotted the piece straightaway as a later confection cobbled together from what we in the trade call ‘period elements.’ Of course institutional collectors are biased toward their own collections and just an example or two aren’t precisely illustrative, but it does beg question whether to avoid the embarrassment of incorrect attributions, institutional collectors might be complicit to some degree in stymying advances in Chippendale scholarship.

As I consider this tercentenary year as it moves to its close there is room for very, very much more scholarship on the subject of Thomas Chippendale. For me, as for very many other people, 2018 then hopefully becomes the year in which an interest in Chippendale is not revived, but rather renewed and reinvigorated, and perhaps that renewal of interest will mark this as a time of beginning for additional scholarship and discoveries.

While we celebrate this year the tercentenary of Thomas Chippendale, it must be remembered that it is the birth of Thomas Chippendale the elder, and that his son Thomas Chippendale the younger was involved in the workshop from around 1770. Indeed, it is from information that survives from the time of the younger that we know much of what we do, particularly about the shop itself.

However, as the elder died in 1779 after a couple of years of inactivity due to ill health, it is to Thomas Chippendale the younger we must look for the inspiration, draughtsmanship, and craft that produced some of the workshops most notable productions in the last quarter of the 18^th century. After basically two centuries of inattention, there has recently at long last been significant scholarly attention paid to his work.

A bit of chronology is worth inserting here, with the work of Thomas Chippendale the elder spanning the years from circa 1750 through a few years before his death in 1779, while the tenure of the younger was significantly longer, from about 1770 until about 1821, carrying on despite the firm’s bankruptcy in 1804. Chippendale junior died in 1822.

The lack of attention paid to the younger was possibly the result of the phenomenal attention paid posthumously to the elder. Through the 19^th and 20^th centuries ‘Chippendale’ became a byword for anything in the style of the English decorative arts of roughly the middle of the 18^th century. The mid-18^th century rococo of the Director achieved a revival in the early years of the 19^th century, with the publication of John Weale’s A Collection of Ornamental Designs, with the subtitle ‘chiefly after the designs of Thomas Chippendale’. Bowett notes that despite the subtitle the book didn’t contain a single plate by Thomas Chippendale.

This revivalism continued apace through the century, with every manufacturer offering something in a traditional style that was then labeled ‘Chippendale’. What might be regarded as full-on institutional sanction came in 1905 with the installation of a full-length statue of Thomas Chippendale installed in the façade of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Although Chippendale’s Director in various editions and reprints was widely distributed, including colonial America, it has seemed to me that American 18^th century furniture with designs derived from the Director has significantly less to do with the perpetuation of Chippendale’s innovative designs than it does with what I’d term ‘trade speak’.

With the popularity of colonial furniture styles and colonial revivalism certainly during most of the last century, American dealers and collectors have habitually referred to any case or seating piece with a cabriole leg or any chair with a fan back as ‘Chippendale’. This sort of inaccurate shorthand continues with fulsome abandon, with the American ‘Antiques Roadshow’ on PBS replete with so-called experts repeating this imprecise shorthand on every episode. This underlines the ability of less sophisticated dealers, interior designers and novice collectors to then contact members of the accredited trade in art and antiques and ask for something ‘Chippendale’. What I find frustrating, and at other times mirthful, is the long discussion this then begs when we field such an enquiry, trying to achieve shall we say intellectual common ground. Mea culpa, I am not always as patient as I should be, and in trying to suss out what it is the client is actually seeking, I suspect I am characterized, not always sub rosa, as pedantic and snotty. Or, on second thought, perhaps I have actually been from time to time caught out, with my basic nature pedantic and snotty.

Fortunately, Chippendale scholarship proceeds apace. This year’s excellent tercentenary exhibition at Leeds City Museum accompanied by a comparably excellent catalog knowledgeably weaves together disparate strands of information about his early life and career, the various editions of the Director, notable commissions, and his legacy.

Piranesi’s 1761 Antichita Romane

The death of James Rannie in 1766 came on the cusp of arguably the most productive time for the firm of Chippendale & Rannie, with the association with Robert Adam ramping up and commissions including the enormous job at Harewood in the offing.

It is interesting to consider the nature of the relationship between Adam and Chippendale, with Adam imbued with an appreciation of classical antiquity derived from his grand tour and intimate association with Giovanni Batista Piranesi.

Robert Adam’s grand tour and in particular his time in Rome and the adjacent campagna wrought a sea change from his earlier work, including Dumfries House, and he proved an adept student of Piranesi, introducing design elements with archeological accuracy. These then too were adopted by Chippendale, with neoclassicism displacing the relatively short-lived phenomenon of the rococo as what, between the 1740’s to the 1760’s, was counted as ‘modern taste’.

Plate XXX from 1762 edition of Director– neoclassical above, and rococo below

Well- sort of displaced. One looks at the 1762 edition of The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director and finds very many plates from the two earlier editions, and based on this evidence, it appears that at least at the time of issuance, the rococo was alive and well. One does though find an increasing number of swags and festoons drawn from classical motifs amongst the rocaille, ‘Gothick’, and Chinoiserie.  Of course, it would be simplistic to assume that, like any other design innovation, the popularity of neoclassicism was not gradual in its ascent. It is worth noting that, in Chippendale and Rannie’s first great commission, that of Dumfries House in 1759, what was supplied was entirely in the rococo manner of the 1754 edition of the Director and just a short 3 years before the emergent neoclassicism of the 1762 edition.

I’ve already noted that the furniture inside Dumfries House is a bit at odds with the overall design of the house, an uneasy mixture of Burlingtonian Palladianism and the restrained rococo of the interior plasterwork, and one must assume that the Adam brothers had not much to do with fitting out the house.

This was all to change, of course, following the return of Robert Adam from his grand tour, for it was not just the antiquarianism of Piranesi, but three years of constant tutelage by Charles-Louis Clerisseau as drawing master and bear-leader that gave Adam a style and manner of architectural output that served and informed his prodigious output for the next 30 years.

Lyre and caduceus from Piranesi’s il Camp Marzio dell’Antica Roma, circa 1750

Lyre-back chair by Thos Chippendale, Nostell Priory, to an Adam design

This year is Chippendale’s tercentenary, and the naturally tendentious focus is on his design and output, but the importance of the overarching influence of Robert Adam, and by extension that of Clerisseau and particularly Piranesi might be, but should never be, overlooked. While much has been made of Chippendale’s skill and draughtsmanship in furniture design, very little output, save the Dumfries House commission, follows his patterns. Very much more was executed by Chippendale’s workshop- but to the designs of Robert Adam. The lyre back library chair from Nostell Priory is illustrated by both the late Christopher Gilbert and Adam Bowett as an example of Chippendale’s work in a neoclassical idiom, but it is also illustrated in Eileen Harris’ The Furniture of Robert Adam. That it is more firmly in Adam’s oeuvre than perhaps that of Thomas Chippendale is given weight by an examination of the design inspiration. An engraving of a lyre and caduceus in Piranesi’s Il Campo Marzo dell ’Antica Roma links not just with the splat of chairs executed by Chippendale for Nostell Priory, but also to a similar chair executed by John Linnell for Osterley Park- both major Adam commissions.

Lyre-back chair at Osterley Park, by John Linnell to an Adam design

Something that Christopher Gilbert accepted as a given is the mastery of draughtsmanship Chippendale possessed, and was particularly complimentary of how they were transferred to print in the 1754 edition of the Director when engraved by Matthias Darly. The uniformly good quality is very much marred, in his view, in subsequent editions by engravings of variable quality. It might just be that, particularly in the case of the 1762 edition of the Director, not just the engravings but the drawings from which they are derived have a hodgepodge effect, reflecting as they do not just innovative designs but those that were popular with the workshop’s customers, without regard to current fashion.

Robert Adam, design for demilune commode for Lady Derby, circa 1774, as illustrated in Eileen Harris, The Furniture of Robert Adam

The discordance between design and movables noted at Dumfries House is something of a general occurrence. Eileen Harris in writing about Adam designed furniture puts this down to the typical brief of the architect- designing exterior elevations and those of some interior walls- while the furnishing of the interior footprint was left to the client. She points out that the preponderance of furniture designed by Adam were the likes of pier mirrors and pier tables. Given their placement adjacent to and concordant with interior walls and architectural elements, these types of pieces then have an inherent character that puts them more in the brief of the architect.

With all that, the cabinetmaker that was to furnish more Adam domestic interiors than anyone else was Thomas Chippendale. This does not mean that Adam and Chippendale had what could be termed a relationship of collegial exclusivity, as a number of Adam interiors exist furnished by other workshops. Arguably one of the best Adam interiors, the Etruscan room at Osterley Park, was completed by John Linnell. It has even been suggested that Robert Adam was not a hearty proponent of Chippendale, owing to the workshop’s slow completion of commissions. It might be, as well, that between the architect and designer there was a stylistic divergence that perhaps made each wary of the other. The abundance of surface decoration in furniture to an Adam design, wrought in at times composition material applied to vernacular woods, and then elaborately painted to appear of a piece with wall and plaster treatments was certainly at odds with the preference the Chippendale workshop had for carved details wrought in exotic woods. Indeed, even the marquetry furniture at Harewood, frequently regarded as the most masterful of the suites created by the Chippendale workshop, though of a neoclassical and not rococo style, are at odds with the interiors created by Adam.

The Derby commode, as executed to an Adam design in painted decoration, at Chappell & McCullar

I don’t think anyone would argue that in his day, Adam was much, much more a style setter than was Thomas Chippendale. Adam, though, had very shortly after his death detractors who found much more if not originality than authenticity in what became the Greek revival movement in the very late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, and the stripped-down neoclassicism of Sir John Soane. So much was written at that time of Adam’s work, particularly his late work, as thin and delicately attenuated, with his passion for movement in surface decoration characterized by one early Victorian pundit as ‘frippery’.