How to recognise a Chippendale chair

A Chippendale chair is recognised by a pierced, often carved back splat, a top rail that curves upwards at the corners, and either cabriole legs with claw-and-ball feet or straight, square legs. It is usually made of mahogany. The name comes from the English cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale, whose pattern book of 1754 spread the style around the world.

Facts

Thomas Chippendale and the pattern book

Thomas Chippendale was born in 1718 in Otley in Yorkshire and from the 1750s ran a large workshop in London. He is known not for inventing a style but for publishing in 1754 The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, a book of engraved designs for chairs, commodes, bookcases, beds and mirrors.

The book was intended both for customers and for other cabinet-makers, and it appeared in new editions in 1755 and 1762. As a result, furniture after his designs was made throughout Britain, in the American colonies and in Scandinavia. When people say Chippendale they almost always mean the style, not a chair from his own workshop. Such chairs are rare and very valuable.

The back: splat and top rail

The first thing to look at is the back. In the middle sits a pierced splat, often carved as interlaced ribbons, a lyre, Gothic pointed arches or a geometric lattice. Above it is the top rail, which often curves upwards at the corners like a bow with small ears.

The back is broad and open and sits straight on the rear edge of the seat. Compare with the later Gustavian chair, which often has an oval or rectangular back with a medallion or spindles, and with the simpler Windsor chair, which has a back of turned spindles.

The legs: claw and ball or straight

Chippendale chairs have two types of leg. One is the curved cabriole leg, which swells out at the knee and tapers downwards, often with carved acanthus leaves on the knee and a foot representing a bird's claw gripping a ball. The other is the straight, square leg, often with a chamfered inner edge and joined by stretchers at the bottom.

The claw-and-ball foot has become the symbol of the style, but it appears surprisingly rarely in the pattern book itself, where most chairs have French Rococo feet or straight legs. It was, however, very popular with cabinet-makers in England and America. Straight legs are common on chairs in the Chinese variant.

Rococo, Gothic and China

The pattern book offered three directions of taste. The French, which we now call Rococo, has curved lines and shell ornament; read more about Rococo and see a Rococo commode. The Gothic has pointed arches and quatrefoils in the back, inspired by medieval church windows. The Chinese has a lattice of right angles, known as fretwork, and sometimes pagoda-shaped crests.

The variations show the 18th century's fascination with the exotic and the historical. At the same time Chinese pavilions and Gothic follies were being built in the parks of Europe. In England the period is often called Georgian, after the kings George I–IV.

Genuine 18th century or later copy?

Chairs in the Chippendale style have been made almost continuously since the 1750s, and in the late 19th and 20th centuries large numbers were made in factories. A genuine 18th-century example often has solid mahogany with a deep patina, hand-carved details with small irregularities, hand-made joints and wear where hands and feet have rubbed for two centuries.

Copies often have veneer, machine-carved and very even details, modern screws and an evenly dark-stained surface. Even English and American cabinet-makers around 1760 interpreted the designs freely, so a chair can be genuinely 18th-century without matching a particular plate. Read more in the guide to furniture styles in chronological order and in the category furniture.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Why are so many chairs called Chippendale even though they were not made in his workshop?